"yes, I don't know how this war will end." Another cavalryman sighed, "It's a pity that General Zhou didn't succeed." Sultan Rûm is so fucking despicable. He shook his head, "When I was in the army, the staple food on the march was still jerky. Now the marching cake of the baggage division has a bit of meat left. "Complaining about military rations is always the easiest topic to win resonance in the barracks, and soon all the cavalry will say a word, some say that the marching cake will not grow worms for three years, some say that three pieces of this kind of bread can support people, some say that even rats can't gnaw it, some say that it can be loaded into a catapult to smash people at a critical time, and the most exaggerated description is that two pieces of marching cake can be used to make a fire.

Huangfu shook his head again and again. The marching cake is a new product that has only recently been made by the baggage division. The main ingredients are wheat flour, beef and mutton powder, a little bone meal, mixed with spice powder, fried with pork and mutton fat, and rammed into a very dense round cake with a hydraulic machine. The cake is tightly wrapped in a pig's casing and is said to last up to three years in the dry desert. Each piece of marching bread weighs eight taels, enough for ordinary people to eat for a day. Moreover, fanatical Turks could not eat it. Therefore, the marching cake is cheaper, and the second is to greatly simplify the transportation of grain and grass, although there are many complaints, but the baggage division also uses it as the most important military food to replace jerky.

"It's good that General Zhou's attack is successful," Ma Qianli also nodded, "It's a pity." ”

Although Zhou Li was defeated and died, he has always been quite prestigious in the Anxi Military Division, and he fought until the last moment and died. Therefore, when the officers in Anxi talked about General Zhou, they always had a feeling that they would die before leaving the division, which made the hero cry. In particular, the imperial court recruited 150,000 soldiers, 450,000 regiments, and adopted a steady and steady strategy, and held on to the Sultan of Rûm for so long, but did not achieve a decisive victory. The sergeants did not dare to question the military government's decision, but they always felt sorry for General Zhou.

Zhou Li is in his forties, which is the most ambitious and courageous age, and he is characterized by fierce and fierce attacks. At that time, good news came from the river every morning, and the first thing everyone did was to inquire about the new places that the army had captured, and they were very excited about the new place names. …… Dagam, Rey, Kejiyun, Sava, Deadwood, Hamadan, Sultani, Kerman...... Cities prostrate under the iron hooves of the army in the river. The army marched thousands of miles to the city of Baghdad, but the Sultan of Rûm did not dare to resist, and took the caliph hostage and abandoned the city and fled in a hurry.

Zhou Li did not leave much army to defend the rear, and most of the grain and grass were forcibly collected from the places that had been captured. When he discovered that the Sultan of Rûm was hiding in the Hot Sand Sea west of Baghdad, he immediately led his army into pursuit, intending to cut through the chaos with a quick sword. The Xia army was ambushed by more than 100,000 cavalry, and the whole army was annihilated, and the battle situation suddenly took a sharp turn. The two major powers in the Sahara Sand Sea, Yusuf and Abdu, accepted the canonization of the Baghdad Caliphate and directly sent troops to participate in the Battle of the Sand Sea. After gaining strength, the Rom Turks took advantage of the situation to regain Baghdad. After his victory in the battle, the Sultan of Rûm recaptured the cities captured by the Xia Kingdom one by one, and pushed the battle line back to the area around Khorasan.

The levy of 600,000 troops in the river may seem like a lot, but the battle lines are also very long, and in the areas where the dogs and teeth are crossed, both sides send cavalry to repeatedly clear the other side's forces. And to the south of the river, the Xia kingdom also had to guard against the stabbing of the Ghaznavid kingdom. The sergeants became more and more nostalgic for the feeling of being happy and fierce when Zhou Li commanded the troops to fight at that time. Some people even secretly discussed that General Xu was too old, and he was really cautious in using troops to the point of being conservative and sluggish. In this way, before the Sultan of Rûm could be defeated, the place in the middle of the river was dragged down first.

"If the lone army goes deep, defeat is inevitable," Huang Fuming shook his head and said: "The Turks are clearly luring the enemy to go deeper. ”

"Who knows? How can you fight a war without taking risks? Ma Qianli sneered, "When you captured the Rus Kingdom in one fell swoop, wasn't it also a lone army?" The key is luck! We're not like you guys, fighting a war is meant to have our heads pinned to our belts. If we were afraid of being ambushed, we Captain Wu would not immediately go after the horse thief. ”

"Luck?" Huang Fuming was choked by his disdainful tone, and he couldn't think of a rebuttal for a while.

"The envoy of Lu Cao, arguing with an officer who doesn't understand strategy at all, is it asking for trouble?"

Li Yong sneered in his heart, he looked into the distance, but still did not see the high mountains, the caravan was marching around a group of low conical hills, each hill was barren, the sand and soil showed a light red color, and after traveling for a long time, there were no people everywhere. There were occasional tents, wooden houses, and brick houses on both sides of the road, all of which were empty, with doors and windows open, and the wind and sand creaked and rattled, making him look particularly lonely and desolate, and he even saw a dilapidated mosque, which, as far as Li Yong knew, would not be allowed to fall into such a dilapidated manner in Khorasan.

"Is this what we did?" Li Yong asked, looking at the ruins, "Where have the people gone?" ”

"I don't know." Ma Qianli shook his head, "A confused account." Sighing, "The Turks forced the people to find out the news for them and hide the spies, and we severely punished them according to the "Law on Adultery and Adultery", and all those who fornicated with horse thieves and traitors were executed, and their families were sent to the north as slaves. Their methods are much the same as ours, and when they find out that the people are cooperating with us, they often kill the whole family. The two sides came and went, and the people here died, and those who did not die fled. ”

"Let's see who makes it to the end." Huang Fuming sighed, "The battlefield is not in the river, it is our luck." ”

"That's it," Ma Qianli nodded, "if they hadn't come to our river to burn, kill and loot, this battle wouldn't have been fought." This bird doesn't poop somewhere. His eyes suddenly lit up, and the horsewhip pointed to the top of the mountain in the distance and said loudly: "Look, Huwen City has arrived." ”

"Huwen City has arrived!" The caravan shouted high and low. After a long journey, the people who survived the catastrophe cheered loudly.

After the war between the Xia Kingdom and the Roma Turks, the garrison here increased to 25,000 men. If it weren't for the supply difficulties, the marching division might have sent more men and horses to be stationed here. After all, the location of the city is extremely important. To the south, it carried a sharp knife from the capital of the Ghaznavid, and to the east, the most important mountain pass in and out of the northern part of Tianzhu by the Ghaznavid army. It was a nail that had killed the Ghaznavid Turks, and it was impossible for the Ghaznavid army to attack the vast hinterland of the river without conquering it.

Seeing the iconic mountain of the legendary Huwen City, everyone in the caravan couldn't help but speed up their pace, and the two sides of the road gradually had some breath of life. Li Yong saw the fruit trees flourishing in a low wall, and he recognized the vine and pomegranate trees in the leafy branches. The farmhouse courtyard is sparsely fenced, and clumps of tulips are in stunning bloom. However, due to the lack of water for irrigation, most of the land remains devoid of grass outside the fences and fences.

"This is the Guardian City?" Someone exclaimed, "Why are the walls so strange?" "Is this Cangcheng?"

Li Yong raised his head and couldn't help but squint his eyes, Huwen City was already very different from what he remembered. Originally, the walls of the castle were built along the ridge of the mountain, like a giant serpent coiled over the mountains. And now, the Xia Kingdom has built complex artillery forts on the original city walls. The fort and the rampart are integrated, and from a distance it looks like a triangle, but when you get closer, you find that there are two horn wedges into the city, each of which looks pentagonal on its own. Climbing high and looking into the distance, the entire city wall is like a blooming flower, and after careful observation, Li Yong found that protecting the newly built fortress was far more complicated than he imagined, in addition to the artillery fortress, there were various moats, breastworks and other fortifications.

"Who's up with the idea?" Li Yong pointed to the city wall and pursed his lips, "This kind of taste? This weird look? ”

"It took us two years to renovate the walls to this shape, and even the slightest deviation from the dimensions was possible. When the city wall was rebuilt, in addition to the supervisors of the Baggage Division, there were also people from the Firearms Division staring, and I heard that this method of construction was decided by the newly appointed General Zhao of the Firearms Division. Shi Cai Duanyou, the marching commander of the Xiliu Army, said, "There are no dead ends in the city wall, and it is most conducive to the power of the iron barrel cannon." He pointed to the center of the city, the towering spire of the temple, "The Firearms Department also wants to demolish the temple and build a central fort where the giant cannons are placed, but the Prime Minister is against it. ”

Li Yong was surprised: "When did the Firearms Division become so powerful?" ”

"The situation is stronger than the people." Cai Duanyou sighed, "Cannons are used to defend the city, artillery is used to attack the city, artillery is used in field battles, and artillery is still used in naval battles, and there are still a large number of dignitaries on the side of the regimental training army. I heard that they General Zhao was also detained by the Song State. He smiled tacitly and said in a low voice, "Hehe, but after a few drills, the fortification is really good, and the city wall is almost dead, in my opinion, if the Ghaznavid Turks dare to attack, they will break their teeth if they put a few thousand people to defend the city." We are building Kura Castle near water sources in various parts of the state, and with the security of this castle, the number of people receiving land grants will gradually increase. ”

"yes." Li Yong nodded with emotion, "When the people take root, this land can be regarded as our country." He looked far away, Huwen City was surrounded by desert and desolate wildness, Xia Kingdom had captured Huwen City for more than ten years, and the Ghaznavid Turks had repeatedly fought wars, the aborigines were constantly fleeing, and there were few new immigrants, and this place was more desolate than ten years ago.

............

Zhao Xingde and others took a boat down the river, and after arriving in Runzhou, they entered the canal northward, and the boat traveled not far to Yangzhou. Yangzhou is the metropolis second only to Hangzhou in the southeast, so Huainan East Road is also known as Yangzhou Road. Originally, the Yangzhou shipyard was built on the edge of the Yangtze River, and there was no need to fold into the canal, but Zhao Xingde was just passing by here, and it was too arrogant for him to let Yangzhou Xuezheng, Zhizhou, and defense envoys wait until Guazhoudu to meet. In the future, there will be a group of officers of the naval division who will have to deal with the local government.

Ma Yuan, Liu Wengu and other young officers gathered on the foredeck early in the morning, waiting for the ship to dock with great anticipation.

"The old man left the Yellow Crane Tower in the west, and the fireworks went down to Yangzhou in March. Let's answer this sentence, when the big white is revealed. ”

"It's really time for us to come, there is only one Qionghua in five thousand miles of Chudi. It's the season when the flowers bloom, so I wonder if you're lucky enough to see it. "Yes, Viyan is a flower, and there is no other flower in the world. I can't wait to see it. ”