At the end of winter and the beginning of spring, the weather is relatively cold, especially in the second half of the night, the weather is even colder, however, the eight hundred soldiers who marched in a hurry did not feel that the weather was cold at all, their marching speed was too fast, even if they were riding on horses, the consumption of physical strength was still not small, and the heat emitted by the body had completely offset the coldness of the outside air, and even, they would feel a little hot.

Along the way, there are still soldiers from time to time because of falling off the horse and falling behind, and the team that is on the march has not stopped at all, they have received the task of arriving at the old Baicheng at all costs, no matter how many people are left behind on the way, they will not ask, as for the safety of these fallen soldiers, it is really not so much, just soldiers, they are worthless in this era of Datang, even if they are frozen to death, it is fine, it is a big deal to give their families a pension, compared to the mission of this operation, Sacrificing some soldiers is really nothing.

The soldiers who fell behind, the seriously injured can only stay to rest, and the lightly injured will rest for a while, they will get on their horses again to catch up with the large army, they are all heroic soldiers, they will always remember their mission, even if there is a mountain of swords and fire in front of them, they have to break through, they will not choose to stay in place to rest because they fell off the horse, which is a great shame for a soldier.

Looking at the elite soldiers under his command, one after another, Lao Guo's eyes flashed a trace of distress, these are the elite soldiers he looks at the most, although most of the soldiers who fall behind will not be a big problem, but watching them fall off the horse, his heart is inevitably a little distressed, maybe it is because he has been together for too long, and he has feelings! Or maybe these are his foundations, watching his soldiers fall off their horses, the generals are instinctively distressed.

However, the task is the most important, any general who loves soldiers like a son, will not let the soldiers hide in the rear to enjoy because of the love of the soldiers, when encountering combat missions, will personally lead these soldiers to charge, although every time there will be a lot of soldiers injured and killed, but this is the responsibility of the soldiers, but also the responsibility of the generals, for this responsibility, the generals have no choice, the court spent a huge price to feed so many soldiers, in order to let them serve the country at any time, No matter how great the danger is, the soldiers cannot retreat, so that they can be called a qualified warrior.

"Soldiers, the hour is not early, everyone work hard, we must arrive at the old white city before midnight and move forward at full speed."

Lao Guo couldn't figure out the time, but when he looked up at the moon in the sky, he could roughly judge what the time was, he felt that it was already very late, and it seemed that it was difficult for them to arrive at the ruins of the old Baicheng before midnight, so he ignored the fact that the soldiers under his command fell from time to time and fell behind, and chose to let the soldiers continue to accelerate forward.

The soldiers are also good, none of the soldiers slowed down because they were afraid of being killed, they were all galloping at the fastest speed, and they kept a certain distance from each other to avoid a chain reaction caused by one person falling off the horse.

If you march at night with torches, you can naturally reduce the occurrence of falling horses, but if you raise a large number of fires, your whereabouts will be easily exposed, so if you are discovered by the horse thief's spies, the whole plan will fail.

"Scout, throw away all your equipment and immediately go to the front to find out the news."

Lao Guo continued to give orders to the scouts around him.

Because it is a rapid march, therefore, the scout and the main force of the soldiers and horses are together, no one is faster than the other, and Lao Guo still feels that the team is too slow, so, let the scout throw away the equipment first, so that the speed will be faster than the main force, the armor and weapons on the soldiers are too heavy, the scouts have no heavy armor, and the weapons are also very light, if the light weapons are also thrown away, full speed forward must be faster than the main force.

The scouts sped away, but even if they threw away all their equipment, the distance between them and the main force was very small, and it took a long time to open a short distance.

In the direction of the ruins of the ancient white city, more than 100 soldiers are making the most nervous preparations, the soldiers and horses in ambush are waiting nervously, and the guards responsible for luring the enemy are also nervous, they are standing next to the city gate, once the horse thief suddenly kills over, a rain of arrows is likely to take their lives, and in order to avoid losing their lives, they must pay close attention to the movement in front of them, once they find that there is a horse thief raid, they will immediately cover their heads and necks with their arms, and their arms have been equipped with small shields, It is enough to resist the attack of arrows, and the rest of the parts, especially the chest and abdomen, are equipped with armor, and there is also an additional wooden shield, as long as there is no accident, it will not be pierced by the arrows, and the legs are the weak link, but if the legs are shot, it will not be fatal, and the only parts they have to worry about are their faces and necks, as long as these two parts are not shot by the arrows of the horse thief, there will be no danger to life.

And the premise of all this is that they must detect the arrival of the horse thief in time, and they must not keep their hands raised and cover their necks and faces! In this way, not only will it arouse the suspicion of the horse thief spies, but the arm will also be sore.

Compared with the soldiers outside the city gate, the soldiers standing on the city wall are even more nervous. Or is it better to fall directly on the city wall? It will be safer to fall directly on the city wall, and if it declines from the city wall, it is possible to fall and be seriously injured, and if it is hung directly on the female wall, it may suffer from continuous arrow attacks, however, if different situations are intertwined, it will appear more real, and it will be easier to be accepted by horse thieves, feeling that this is more like a real situation, and in order to avoid injury, you need to prepare one step earlier, for example, soldiers who plan to hang themselves on the broken female wall need to be equipped with helmets that can resist arrows, In the north, you need to prepare an extra layer of armor, and the back of your neck must be protected, so that if you hang yourself on the wall, you will not be hurt by the arrows that continue to attack you.

In addition, there is a tent at each city gate, which is a place for soldiers to rest, and several soldiers in charge of guarding the gate will take turns to enter the tent to rest after nightfall, and the rest is inevitably to unload their armor, and the tent must also be a place for horse thieves to attack when they raid, then, the soldiers resting in it are in danger of being killed, and in order to protect these soldiers, they must be prepared in advance.

In order to solve this problem, it is necessary to put on inner armor for the soldiers, these armors are very thin in the soldiers' clothes, and they are not easy to be found by horse thieves.

Arrows and blood stains must also be prepared in advance, the soldier wears white clothes outside, which is stained with blood first, and then, insert a broken arrow into the clothes, when the horse thief is raiding, as long as he hears the sound of arrows flying everywhere, he can pretend to panic and escape from the tent, and then suddenly fall to the ground, as long as a few bloodstained arrows are inserted in the reserve, he can deceive the horse thief.

These details don't seem to be very important, in fact, these are very important, extremely important, only these details are done well enough, so that the horse thief can completely relax his vigilance, so that he can rest assured and boldly rush into the city, so that Ang Lee's plan will be successful.

"Li Shilang, I'm back,"

The scouts sent out have quietly returned, this is the excellent scouts trained by Ang Lee himself, they are the best at camouflage, they can easily disguise themselves as a small animal, or disguise themselves as a tree, a stone, and even merge with the desert is not a difficult task, and it is with such special camouflage skills that these scouts can detect important situations that ordinary people can't detect.

"How's it going, has the horse thief found it?"

Li An asked with concern.

"I found it, just more than ten miles away in the northwest, all hidden in a ravine, very well hidden, it is generally difficult to find at all, because there are many horse thieves and spies on horseback who suddenly disappeared in the same place, which allowed the villain to find this ravine, it was too dark, and the villain did not dare to get too close, only to see that there were hundreds of people, maybe there would be more."

The scout reported.

"It seems that there are quite a few horse thieves! If Lao Guo's soldiers and horses can't come in time for reinforcements, we really can't eat so much in one bite. ”

Li An said.

Lure the horse thieves into the city, and then carry out various attacks, especially fire attacks, can indeed deal a major blow to these horse thieves, however, the horse thieves are numerous, and so Baicheng is an abandoned city, the city wall is broken everywhere, if the horse thief gives up the horse, from the broken city wall can escape, and more than 100 soldiers are mainly defending the three city gates, there is really no extra force to defend the city wall, so it is also difficult to block the horse thief to escape, and Lao Guo's soldiers and horses are different after they come, With reinforcements, we will be able to wipe out all the horse thieves who have entered the Old White City.

"The horse thieves are in ambush more than a dozen miles away, and it seems that they are really going to attack us, and it is almost in the middle of the night."

Li Hanlu opened his mouth and said.

Li An nodded, stood up lightly from the bench, and then sat down again, in the entire city gate tower, only Li An and Li Hanlu had a small stool to sit on, and the rest of the soldiers were all sitting on the dirt ground, the conditions here were simple, where there were conditions for the soldiers to have benches to sit on, and Li An stood up because it was too uncomfortable to sit all the time, and standing up was also to relax the leg nerves and let the buttocks breathe, and immediately sat down thinking that there might be spies of horse thieves around, if you stand up for too long, It is easy to be detected by horse thieves' spies, and in this way, it is very detrimental to the enemy's decoy plan.

Looking up at the sky, Li An knew that it was indeed not far in the middle of the night, in the era when there were no clocks, the most reliable way to judge the time was to look at the sun and the moon, as long as you looked at the height and angle of the moon hanging in the sky, and then compared with the date, you can judge the approximate time, whether it is an official of the imperial court, or an ordinary person, or even a horse thief, they all use this method to judge the time.

"Don't be nervous, there is nothing to fear about horse thieves, we will definitely be able to defeat horse thieves in this battle."

Seeing that a soldier was a little scared, Li An opened his mouth to encourage, this soldier looks very young, according to the standards of later generations, he is a minor, but in the era of the Tang Dynasty, he can enlist as a soldier at this age.

"Li Shilang, I'm not afraid."

Although his expression was obviously very nervous, the little soldier still stubbornly said that he was not afraid, and he was brave.

"How old is this year?"

Li An asked with concern.

"Back to Li Shilang, the villain is seventeen years old this year."

The soldier replied.

"Seventeen years old, still a child, when the fight starts, pay attention to safety, not only to eliminate horse thieves, but also to protect yourself."

Li An said with concern.

"Yes, the villain understands."

The soldier said excitedly.

Subsequently, Li An boosted his morale for a while, telling all the soldiers not to be afraid, telling them that the reinforcements would definitely arrive in time, Lao Guo was not so bold and dared not to come in time, and about this, the soldiers were all convinced, feeling that with a big man like Li An, the reinforcements would definitely come, so what else did they have to be nervous about?

It was soon in the middle of the night, Li An and his party were making close preparations for the battle, and the horse thieves were about to start, and Lao Guo's soldiers and horses had not yet arrived, so it seemed that they were a little late.

The latest information from Xiazhou City and the eyeliner from all directions shows that the soldiers and horses in Xiazhou City have not shown the slightest sign of mobilization, and there is no large-scale troop transfer around them, and there is no trace of officers and soldiers on the main road leading from Xiazhou City to the Ancient White City, all of which seems to show that the officers and soldiers in the White City are a group of lonely soldiers, and there are no reinforcements to reinforce them, and at the same time, it also shows that this is not a trap of officers and soldiers, but the officials of the imperial court inadvertently entered their territory. If you don't make a move, you're sorry for your title of horse thief.

The leader of the horse thieves looked at the moon in the sky, then looked at several brothers under his command, and said: "Brothers, the officers and soldiers should have fallen asleep at this moment, this is a great opportunity for us to attack, remember to be fast, before the officers and soldiers wake up, cut off their heads, and not a single officer and soldier will be let go." ”

"Big brother, don't worry, with our brother's help, we will definitely not let one of the officers and soldiers run away."

"Big brother, you just wait for our good news! Brothers, get ready to fight. ”

"Brothers, follow me."

The little leaders had been waiting for a long time, and each of them commanded less than 200 soldiers and horses, left the ambush ravine, and rushed towards the ruins of the old White City as fast as possible.