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Chapter 311 The end of the world
Zhang Xiaosong wiped the blood on his face, and looked around at the soldiers.

Of the more than 500 people, there are now only 180 people left. In the breakout battle just now, even Li Yingwei was killed in the battle.

But now everyone doesn't know what sorrow is, or sorrow and tears have exhausted nearly ten days of hard work.

He looked at the sun in the southern sky. In October, in this cold ghost place, it was extremely faint, like a dying old man.

He couldn't help swearing, and asked: "His grandma's, who can tell me, what is this place?"

The eyes of all the subordinates showed a look of bewilderment. They only knew that ten days ago, the [-] troops of Tuqishi rushed out of that passage like crazy, and divided into groups and teams to attack them on the grassland. Search, and then start a fierce fight.Each of them seemed to be more fierce than their blood battalion fighters.

However, Zhang Xiaosong made an analysis, which shows that most of the blood battalion successfully broke through the encirclement, and inflicted heavy damage on the Tuqi people. There is one most important piece of evidence. Except for this enemy army, no other army rushed coming.They were chasing Xiao Song and they went.That's why the Tuqi Shi felt seriously humiliated, so they retaliated against them so frantically.

But it also gave them a glimmer of life. After all, no other troops came, and the density of the mesh became sparse on this deserted grassland.This also gave them the opportunity to continue to break through.But that's it. With the disparity in strength, they had no choice but to fight all the way and retreat all the way to the north.But the Tuqi Shiren did not let them go, and continued to chase after them frantically.

All the way to the north, through grasslands, hills, forests, and even swampy areas.

The boundless swamp has been covered with a layer of ice in the cold weather and covered with a thin layer of white snow.This is also the most dangerous, although the temperature has dropped, causing some swamp silt to form frozen soil.But there are still many places where the silt can't support the weight of a war horse and a soldier, and they sink down, and the shallower ones rescue the man or the horse together.But in a deeper place, if you fall, there will be no one in sight soon.

And Bai Xue has become the most cunning trap, there is no way to judge where is hard soil and where is swamp.After suffering a lot, I can gradually judge that the danger is relatively small along the forest area with thick trees.But this is not absolute at all. Some swamps still grow thick pine and fir.

Of course, this situation is even more of a nightmare for Tuqishi who have more soldiers.But the biggest disadvantage is that after they passed by, the horses left obvious marks on the snow, which facilitated the enemy's search.Just like in the previous battle, although the enemy did not have the advantage of eyesight, they still concentrated more than ten times their strength, almost enclosing them all in a circle.If Li Yingwei hadn't desperately led dozens of soldiers to cover and sniped the enemy from behind, none of them would have escaped.

Zhang Xiaosong picked up one eye, and before leaving, Xiao Song left four eyes for them.One fell into the swamp forever with the scouts, and the other died in battle with the lieutenant in charge of the eye, and its whereabouts are unknown.Now only the two eyes are left, on the hands.

He looked into the distance, a very monotonous scene, forests with tall birches and pine trees, but most of the places are plains, strictly speaking, swamps, with some low shrubs and weeds growing, covered with a layer of white snow , Like snowdrifts raised on the ground.Occasionally, one or two squirrels can be seen jumping between the trees, bringing up a large amount of falling snow.

But no one can be seen.

He could swear that even though the place where Su Wu herded sheep was said to be deserted, it was not as far away from Chang'an as the place where they are now.

Where did this come from, Zhang Xiaosong smiled wryly.

Suddenly, a burst of snow fell from the top of his head, drenching his body into a ball of white powder.Zhang Xiaosong raised his head, and saw that there was also a little squirrel above his head, looking at them curiously, without any fear.Probably it is also the first time to see humans.

Zhang Xiaosong smiled wryly again.

Then he ordered to send scouts to watch the enemy's movements, and at the same time lead the army to continue to evacuate northward.

But after hearing him give this order, Ge Shuhan jumped out first. He knocked a piece of solid ice about an inch thick on the ground with the head of his lance, and said, "Recorder, let's go back. Go north, you Look, this is the beginning of October, and the ice is so thick, do you want to take us to the end of the world?"

Not to mention, most of the soldiers were also worried. No one had ever been here, and it was not marked on the map.

The most important thing is the cold weather. Now even the arrows are frozen in the quiver, and it is very difficult to draw them out during the battle.Before Xiao Song left, he left almost all the remaining tent food to them, and at the same time, almost each of them had two war horses and one horse as a camel.But after fighting all the way to the present, most of the camels and horses were lost, and supplies became tense.Although the clothes on his body were thick, they couldn't stop the increasingly cold weather.Every night when going to sleep, dozens of people squeeze into one tent, because there are only a dozen or so tents left.The only thing that is not nervous is the food. There are countless glaciers along the way. When the ice is broken, these fish are like fools, and dozens of them can be caught in a while.Some of them weigh more than ten kilograms.It's just that there are many kinds of fish, which are different from the fish in the Central Plains, and some of them are so unique that even soldiers dare not eat them.But eating fish every day, coupled with no salt, made me want to vomit.

Further north, it goes without saying, is worse.

Hearing Ge Shuhan's words, the other soldiers shouted together, wanting to fight back.

Zhang Xiaosong sighed and said, "You all have such thoughts, so what about the enemy?"

Just as he was speaking, the scouts returned and reported: "The enemy has withdrawn."

Zhang Xiaosong said happily after hearing this: "Investigate again and report again."

The reason for the reaction of Ge Shuhan now is precisely because there are two big mountains, behind them are dozens of times the pursuit of soldiers, and in front of them is a strange world with extremely bad terrain and weather.If the enemy is also afraid of this world, at least one mountain has been moved.

Otherwise, if this continues, within five days, not to mention the soldiers, even I will go crazy.

He took the piece of ice from Ge Shuhan's hand, and said: "There is another reason, we must go north. Have you ever thought about one thing? If the ice is twice as thick, or twice , what will happen. We are surrounded by a boundless swamp, without end. But the further north we go, the colder the weather, the thicker the ice will be. When it is thick enough, not to mention on the swamp, it is On the big rivers, we can also walk on flat ground. Then we can go west. Then go south again, cross the Yaoshashui, Wuhu River, and then return east to Congling."

Having said that, he raised his voice and said, "Now I'm going to take you home!"

After speaking, regardless of everyone's reaction, he was the first to ride north.

In a place nearly two thousand miles away to the south, Xiao Song was also making a choice.This road home is not much easier than Zhang Xiaosong and the others, but the more they travel, the closer they are to the journey home.

After killing the encircling army on the right side of Tuqi Shi, Xiao Song made an unexpected choice. He did not choose the nearest road to return to the Tang Dynasty, but turned to the southwest.This made the blocking army rearranged by several major tribes from Qingshan to Ge Luolu fail again.

Then Xiao Song led the rest of the army straight to Tuqishi's belly.

Fighting all the way, this time it really brought a huge damage to Tuqi.Wu Zhile had no choice but to lead the army along the Tianshan Mountains and cut to the southwest. At this time, he still wanted to completely cut off all the return routes of this Tang army.However, Tang Jun suddenly disappeared for several days, and when he reappeared, he was already in Atami (Issyk-Kul Lake), just one step away from Suiye City.

Hearing this news, Uzhile was taken aback, and hurriedly led his army westward along the Yili River (Yili River).

But Xiao Song fired his carbine back, swayed outside Suiye City, bypassed Rehai, and suddenly returned to Tianshan Mountain.

But I got a piece of bad news. Several checkpoints leading from the south of Rehai to the Tianshan Mountains of the Tang Dynasty have garrisons of Tuqi Shi.Some of these passes have more garrisons, and some have fewer.If it is a normal marching operation, as long as there are enough siege equipment and time, it cannot constitute a real barrier.Guan Jian is that now they have no equipment, and secondly they are pressed for time.If there is a delay, the Tuqi Shi Dajun will catch up immediately.

There is another road, going south again, rushing to Tocharian, and returning to Tang Dynasty from Congling.

But it will take a few days, all the way south, fighting constantly, and now they have less than 900 people left.Any army of sudden cavalry blocking them can deal a devastating blow to them.

While looking at the map, Xiao Song marked the strength of the scouts and fell into a long test.

After a while, he came out without weighing the importance, so he called everyone together.Anyway, there are not many people now, Xiao Song looked apologetic looking at his tired-looking subordinates.Then he explained the current situation and opened the map.

The main point is that he has many Western Turkic Hu soldiers under his command. Even now, there are dozens of them who are from Western Turkic, and half of them grew up in Western Turkic.So after arriving here, they are more familiar with the terrain than themselves.

Looking at the map, a Hu Bing stood up and said, "General Xiao Ying, I have a road, but it was walked more than ten years ago, I don't know if it will work now."

"Tell me."

This Hu Bing pointed to the map and said: "General Xiao Ying, look here. This is called Tongtian Ridge. Their checkpoint is set at the waist of the mountain road. There are cliffs on both sides. It is credible for the scouts to say that there are 300 people here."

Xiao Song nodded.Don't want 300 people, even 100 people, in this dangerous terrain where one man guards the gate and ten thousand people can't open it, I don't even think about crossing the Tianshan Mountain from this Tongtian Ridge.

This Hu Bing went on to say: "Actually, if I remember correctly, there is an error in this marching map. General Xiao Ying, look, this is Wudus Mountain to the south of Tongtian Ridge, and to the south is another unnamed mountain. The elephant is called Dajian Mountain, but I forgot the name anyway. There is a cliff between the two mountains. If the terrain has not changed, the cliff is not as wide as the map, and the narrowest point is only about five or six feet."

"I understand what you mean. If it's really only this wide, you can send a team of troops to go up the mountain on foot, and then take a ladder that is five or six feet long, or a little longer. On the top of Dusi Mountain, from top to bottom, take Tongtian Pass."

"Yes, but that was more than ten years ago. I don't know if the width has widened now."

Xiao Song said, "Let's try it."

Take the army and go straight to Tongtian Pass.

But the progress was not very smooth. The narrowest part of the cliff was indeed only five or six feet wide, but this Hu Bing climbed and hunted from the north of Tianshan Mountain. Compared with the north slope, the south slope of Dajian Mountain is steeper.

Xiao Song sent [-] soldiers to climb up, but because some places were close to the cliff, when climbing, more than a dozen soldiers fell from the cliff, screaming in mid-air because of fear.This also woke up the Tuqishi soldiers guarding the pass. They immediately judged Tang Jun's intentions and assigned soldiers to guard the narrowest place.

Fortunately, within the range of the arrows, under the cover of the bows and arrows of the soldiers behind, soldiers climbed from Dajian Mountain to the top of Wusi Mountain one after another.However, due to the unfavorable terrain, there were many casualties.

After Xiao Song saw this situation with his eyes from the foot of the mountain, he immediately ordered to storm the pass in order to support the soldiers on the top of the mountain.

As a result, it took a long time of fierce fighting before Tongtian Pass was taken down. This is also the one with the largest casualty ratio so far. In order to capture this pass, facing [-] defenders, the blood camp paid the precious lives of nearly [-] soldiers.

Time was also delayed, and Uzhile had already chased after him with an army.

Xiao Song looked at the remaining five hundred soldiers, and said again, regardless of the sadness in his heart: "Withdraw!"

After crossing the Tianshan Mountains, they rushed all the way to the east in panic.

But by this time, people were exhausted.Gradually, the army of Tuqi Shi was chasing closer and closer, and the huge dust kicked up by the chasing army could already be seen with the naked eye.

Xiao Song shouted again: "Quick!"

However, after running wildly for not an hour, a large cloud of dust appeared in front of them again. By this time, the soldiers no longer had any confidence.

Xiao Song sighed and said: "Get ready to go to war, one fight is one fight."

There is no way to escape, and there is no strength to escape.

But at this time, the scout raised his eyes and exclaimed with great joy: "General Xiao Ying, look."

Xiao Song took the eyes and saw countless soldiers galloping on horseback in the dust.There are also many banners mixed in the middle, and on these banners is written a large character written in octant: Guo!

He turned his head and shouted: "Brothers, Governor Guo, Ambassador Guo personally led the army to meet us."

He is both the governor and the ambassador, and there is no other family. It is Guo Yuanzhen, the famous general in the northwest of Liangzhou and the ambassador of the military states in Longyou.

Three days later, it really seemed like the end of the world.

Anyway, after arriving here, the time to see the sun will not exceed three hours a day. In the distant southern sky, it will disappear after shaking, and then enter the long night.Almost everyone has never encountered this phenomenon.

Ge Shuhan knocked off another piece of ice, handed it to Zhang Xiaosong and said, "Zhang Lushi, look, this time should be almost the same."

Zhang Xiaosong turned his head, looked at the sky, not the sun in the sky, and looked at the ice in Ge Shuhan's hand, it was indeed two inches thick.

In fact, Zhang Xiaosong also planned to stop here without Ge Shuhan's reminder.There were no enemy pursuers for these three days, but because of the cold weather and the lack of salt, several soldiers died of illness, and several soldiers fell into the swamp. This is why Zhang Xiaosong continued to go north with his men. The thickness is not enough.But now half of the soldiers have chilblains, and some are starting to swell.Moving forward, the soldiers themselves have no confidence.

Just as he was about to speak, Ge Shuhan suddenly shouted: "Be careful!"

Pushing him to the ground, he drew his waist knife and stabbed him forward.

Zhang Xiaosong turned his head and saw a bear, a very big bear with white fur, nearly twice the size of those black blind men.

Ge Shuhan didn't reach the waist knife, and was slapped on the back of the knife by the big white bear. The knife in Ge Shuhan's hand flew out immediately, and his whole body was also drawn to the ground.

But after a while, other soldiers also surrounded him.

But it was this bear that forced the two soldiers into unconsciousness before killing it.

"What kind of monster is this?" Seeing the huge fallen body, the soldiers looked at each other in blank dismay.

Zhang Xiaosong got up from the ground and said: "Never mind, it's a good thing that this monster came to your door. It's skin can be peeled off, and you can make a few warm vests for the brothers, and this body is enough. We all have a few meals."

"Yeah, I forgot about it," Ge Shuhan said happily.

In this sinister world, everyone's brains are so frozen that they can hardly wake up.

Together excitedly gathered around and started to fight. Although there was no salt, the taste of bear meat was better than eating fish every day.

Zhang Xiaosong said: "Let's set up camp here, everyone rest overnight, tomorrow we will head southwest."

Hearing that the U-turn was starting, everyone shouted excitedly again.

Some people set up camp, in fact, there are only a few tents, which are mainly fastened with ropes, otherwise they may be blown away by the strong north wind.The night before, during the blizzard, everyone held on to the corners of the tent all night, and that was it, it seemed that the tent and people would be swept up into the sky at any time.As a result, on the second day, the snow was as thick as half a person, and more than a dozen war horses were blown by the night's wind and snow, and they froze to death.

In addition to camping, there are dead branches from the snowdrifts to make a bonfire.Without the warmth of the bonfire, there is no way to survive the night, but sometimes the bonfire may not be able to grow. Like the snowstorm the night before, the bonfire had to be extinguished actively, otherwise the bonfire might be blown to the tent by the wind.That trouble is bigger.

Zhang Xiaosong called some generals over, even if he marched southwest, he had to plan how to march.Now they don't even know where they are. If they march to the other side of the world all of a sudden and cannot speak the language, they will be in big trouble.Guan Jian is what they rob. Almost half of these people are injured and sick, and they can't rob others.

Zhang Xiaosong picked up a branch, drew a sketch on the ground, and said, "We marched westward from the junction of Daqingshan and Xiaoqingshan."

After thinking for a while, he said: "We marched very fast in those two days. After calculating the itinerary, we marched westward for about [-] miles. Then we and Xiao Ying separated them, and we marched westward again. Nearly two hundred miles away, we took the initiative to attract the main force of Tuqishi. On the fourth day, when the Xiaoying captured them, the enemy began to attack actively. We began to retreat to the northwest while fighting. The whole time was [-] God. But because of the terrain, everyone's marching speed is not fast. Calculated at two hundred miles per day, we walked about three thousand miles to the northwest. That is, we are now nearly four thousand miles northwest of Jianhekou, Daqingshan. If we want to go back, we can't go too far to the southwest. Otherwise, we will go back to the south and don't know where we are."

The crowd nodded.

"There are two more points. First, we have to find a mountain range. It is best to move south along the mountain range. After all, we will return to the south, and the weather will be relatively warmer. Now there is a vast and endless swamp. If any swamps are not frozen, or The ice is not thick enough, and the danger is greater. Another point, we must be quick, today is the ninth day of October, and it is about to enter the winter moon, and the weather will be even colder."

The following words were not uttered. Not to mention entering November, even before October [-], the soldiers did not get out of this cold weather, and the soldiers fell one by one in the severe cold.In fact, until now, Zhang Xiaosong was not sure about bringing his subordinates back to the Tang Dynasty.

Suddenly Ge Shuhan pointed forward.Zhang Xiaosong raised his head, and he saw a large group of deer walking towards them. This kind of deer is about half the height of a person, tall and tall, with long horns.But unlike the deer in the Central Plains, the fur of this deer is gray.

We all saw big white bears and all kinds of strange fish, and we are not surprised to see this kind of deer.

It's just that there are many deer in this herd, densely packed, there may be thousands of deer.Seeing everyone, he was also looking at them with curious eyes.

Xiao Song immediately thought that maybe these deer, like other animals here, have never seen human beings and don't know how terrible human beings are.He said: "Immediately send an order quietly, everyone should not move, but prepare your weapons and watch my movements and act together."

Then he smiled and said, "This is God who came to rescue us."

Everyone knows that if a large number of deer are hunted, the meat is not an important issue, the main thing is the deerskin. With the deerskin, some rough clothes can be used to help the soldiers keep out the cold.This is what soldiers need most now.

But now that the soldiers have poor physical strength and the severe cold weather, some bows dare not draw to the full, otherwise the bowstring may be broken.Steel is frozen.The soldiers themselves could not move quickly.Therefore, we had to passively wait for them to approach and hunt them down.

The herd of deer gradually approached and sniffed everyone with their noses. Everyone just followed Zhang Xiaosong's example and stood there motionless.As the leading buck swaggered past, the herd of deer behind them also came in front of everyone.

Zhang Xiaosong gave everyone a wink, and suddenly became violent.Pick up a large lance and smash it at a tall stag.Along with everyone's weapons, they fell down together.

Only then did everyone understand why the barbarians like to use knives. The lance is no less lethal than a knife on the battlefield, but when hunting, especially these large animals, the effect is much worse.As soon as they went down, most of them didn't get killed, but escaped quickly with injuries.On the contrary, some Hu Bing held machetes and were almost killed by knives.

Frightened, the herd of deer galloped away, bringing up streaks of white snow and making a sound like galloping horses.More than a dozen soldiers were trampled and wounded.

However, the rewards were not small, and more than 80 deer, large and small, were killed.That's enough for everyone to have a fur coat to wrap around them.

Zhang Xiaosong laughed loudly and said, "Pick the skin!"

This is also the happiest day since I escaped.With clothes to keep out the cold, it is equivalent to having half of the vitality.

The sun was setting quickly. In fact, it can no longer be described as setting, it can only be said to have disappeared.

The soldiers began to roast the venison in the dim night.

The bursts of meaty aroma caused the wolves in the woods to howl.However, they may be aware of the horror of this group of creatures, and after howling a few times in the distance, they left on their own initiative.

But after a while another soldier shouted: "Look."

Everyone followed the direction of his finger and looked to the north.They saw some magnificent and strange lights shining in the northern sky, some flashed across the sky like lightning, some bloomed in the sky like a flower, and lingered for a long time, some resembled A colorful picture.

This strange scene kept changing in the northern sky and never disappeared.

"What is that?" A soldier asked Zhang Xiaosong.

It must not be lightning, but Zhang Xiaosong smiled wryly, and he said: "I don't know, maybe we have really reached the end of the world. Where is the sky?"

PS: This time the marching route started from the turn of the Sayan Mountains, and fought in the northwest of the Ishim Grassland. The place where the Aurora was seen was not very far from the Ob Gulf.It can also be said that it has reached the real end of the world.Writing this paragraph is a reasonable escape route, and it is also a small hole for the back.There is also a Tianbao of the Tang Dynasty, where the climate was very warm before. If the weather changed to a small glacier climate after the Anshi Rebellion, and it was here in October, it is estimated that there is no possibility of survival.

By the way, I studied the geography of Siberia and learned that nomads would rather go south than go north for another reason.Although the Siberian Plain is vast, there are many large rivers in the upper reaches, but when the rivers are frozen downstream, they cannot quickly enter the Arctic Ocean, so they flood the ground. There are many large swamps in Siberia.It was difficult for humans to survive here in ancient times.There are definitely people, but very few.

Advertisement, I recommend a friend's masterpiece "Xiaoyao Yixian", ISBN 1709841, it is the root food, everyone, go and have a look!This guy is also quite hardworking and deserves support.

(End of this chapter)