Ten miles outside the city of Hamadan, the cavalry skirmishes of the Xia Kingdom and the Roma Turks had been fighting for more than ten days.

Every night, the sound of horses' hooves and arrows whizzing through the sky. Hamadan was the base of the Sultan of Rom, and further back was Baghdad . The loss of Khan City and Li Sihai's re-erection of the banner of King Baiyi made it impossible for Sultan Massud of Rûm to retreat without a fight. From the day the Xia cavalry advanced approached Hamadan, skirmishes never stopped. The Xia Kingdom and the Roma Turkic army howled like beasts, trying to suppress each other's space and morale as much as possible before the decisive battle.

Wang Tongdeng's Second Army was the first cavalry army to approach Hamadan, and the cavalry built the camp behind a bush, and took turns to compete with the Turkic cavalry of Hamadan during the day, and slept under the protection of the camp at night, vigilantly monitoring the movements of the Turkic army on the opposite side. Both the Xia and Turkic armies had a large number of cavalry, and the distance between the main forces of the two armies was already extremely close, and the retreat of either side could leave the battlefield at a very fast speed, or it could evolve into a great rout under the pursuit of the other side.

In January, the weather was extremely cold, white snow covered the land, the Turkic wolf smoke emitted a foul smell, and the sky was gray-black.

Wang Tongdeng walked out of the camp tent, led his war horse, and walked along the low wall of the camp to the back of the woods.

War horses are another life of the cavalry, even if he is a general, he has to personally feed the horses, walk the horses, the horses dig out the dry grass under the snow to eat, Wang Tongdeng also leaned on a crooked neck tree to pretend to sleep, on the battlefield, only this forest close to the summer army camp will be so comfortable. A hidden arrow might fly out of the other bushes. Wang Tong tightened his military robe, looked up and watched the sky gradually dim, and his mood gradually calmed down. Kui, Lou, Stomach, Ang, Bi, Mouth, and Ginseng Western White Tiger Seven Nights shine in the night sky, and the White Tiger, the chief of the beasts, can fight and frustrate, devour ghosts, and kill the main thing. Betelgeuse in the Seven Nakshatras is opposite to the Great Martian Merchant Lodge, but they can never be together. Therefore, the Guanzhong people like to use the metaphor of the separation of husband and wife, while Hezhong is more accustomed to the primogeniture law to force the brothers to separate their families as the separation of the husband and the business.

Wang Tongdeng narrowed his eyes and looked at the stars from afar, and for some reason, he remembered the family members who stayed behind.

He closed his eyes and let his memory paint his wife's face, the first time he saw the fiery love, the reunion was lingering with death, the reluctance to part, recalling the faint intoxicating fragrance, a gentle smile appeared on Wang Tongdeng's face, he took a deep breath, the dry and cold air filled his lungs, making him a little hot and calm down, he opened his eyes and found himself lying on the rough trunk of a dead tree with a crooked neck. He remembered the turmoil on the southern shore of the Wuhu River. At first, Wang Tongdeng only thought it was a disease of scabies, and he really didn't know what was going on with the army left behind in the river, but after such a long time, not only did not completely quell the rebellion, but affected the supply of the army, and even the letters of the soldiers and family members in the rear became unstable.

Wang Tongdeng's eyes were covered with a haze, and he stood up and held his horizontal knife tightly.

As a sergeant, in the face of all problems, the final and final solution is to rely on the fierce horse under the crotch and the sword in his hand. When he walked out of this wood, he had suppressed all distractions and became the tiger general in Xu Wenhu's hands again, the general in the sergeant's mind. The river is in turmoil, and in order to protect their homeland, the soldiers can only continue to fight until they defeat all the enemy.

The Turks tried to drive away the advance of the Xia cavalry, and for several days in a row, the Turkic infantry of the brigade attacked the camp of the Second Army of Huamao. The sergeants of the Second Army encircled the horses, the sergeants stood on the barracks and shot the enemy cavalry with bows and arrows, and Wang Tongdeng personally led a cavalry to several battalions to counterattack the Turkic cavalry. Although besieged by enemy forces several times their size, the Xia cavalry remained unfazed, they always shot arrows accurately and charged bravely. The arrows knocked the Turkic cavalry to the ground, and the cavalry immediately launched a ferocious counter-charge, and Wang Tongdeng himself also had many gains. After a few days of fierce fighting, when Xu Wenhu's army successfully marched to the vicinity, the Turkic cavalry besieging the Second Army of Huamao retreated in disarray, leaving many Turkic corpses on the battlefield of the camp.

"We must defeat Messud as soon as possible, so that the army can enter Baghdad and get food and grass."

Wang Tongdeng suggested to Xu Wenhu. After Xu Wenhu's army arrived, he found that the situation was far worse than he had imagined. Wang Tongdeng could not imagine the level of incompetence of the Hezhong side, and actually allowed the small rebellion south of Wuhu Water to expand to the extent that it affected the transportation of grain and grass to the army. The grain and grass that was originally planned was not brought up on time, and many horses lost weight. It was a cold winter, and in this region where the Xia Kingdom and the Turks were at war repeatedly, it was impossible to find sufficient fodder by relying on local supplies from the military alone. The soldiers were blue from the cold, the officers were furious because of the lack of supplies, and the sergeants ripped off the roofs of all hay and unceremoniously collected food and grass among the surviving people in the vicinity.

Xu Wenhu ostensibly did things in the rear, but only discussed with the officers to defeat the Turkic army in front as soon as possible.

"The life of the Turks is no better than ours."

Wang Tongdeng explained to Xu Wenhu as much detail as he could about the situation of Mesud's army.

"The people in the vicinity not only hide from us, but also hide from the Turks, when they hear the sound of horses' hooves, they would rather hide under the snowdrift and freeze to death than come out, the Turks' horses are thinner than ours, and the city of Hamadan can be burned almost to the fullest, and it is not easy for us to collect firewood and grass in the city, and the Turkic army and people are frozen one by one, and we have seen the horse bones secretly thrown away by the Turks outside the city from time to time,"

"The Turks started eating horse meat?" Xu Wenhu asked.

"Yes." Wang Tongdeng added, "Although it was burned black, I recognized that it was the bones of horses. In the next few days, Xu Wenhu sent an artillery battalion to bombard the walls of Hamadan, and the infantry army swept the strongholds of the Turkic army outside the city, gradually forming a situation of encirclement to cut off the enemy's rear route, increasing the pressure on the Turkic Sultan, and at the same time requiring all battalions to step up their drills and prepare for a decisive battle with the Turkic army. At the same time, he temporarily blocked the news coming from the river. For more than a month, the messengers from the river either returned immediately or were quarantined by him, lest the ill-intentioned men disturb the morale of the army before the great battle.

The weather was getting colder and colder, and on the thirtieth day of the lunar month, the Xia army withdrew the cavalry that challenged it and prepared to rest for two days.

While the sergeants were preparing to spend Chinese New Year's Eve in the fields outside Hamadan, the Roma Turkic army suddenly drove out of the city and lined up to challenge the Xia army. Xu Wenhu did not show weakness, passed the order "extinguish this dynasty food", the morale of the sergeants was greatly boosted, and for the time being, the prepared Chinese New Year's Eve dinner was put down, and the battalions set out to line up to meet the Turks. In the camp of the Second Army of Flower Hats, Wang Tongdeng took the blacksmith with the army to rush back to the iron shop from the gang, the sergeant helped him pull the bellows to the sound of whirring, the fire was blazing, the hammer was clanging, the war horse was neighing loudly, before the big battle, all the missing horseshoes were re-nailed, and the sergeants were busy making preparations before the big war while trimming the harness.

"The Turks can't hold it back, and if they drag it out, they will starve to death before us."

Wang Tongdeng looked at the continuous Turkic army formation in the distance and said a little proudly. He had expected this for a long time.

The winter sky was cold and clean, the north wind was blowing strongly, and the cavalry shrunk their necks and hid their faces in the collar of their military robes, which was the time of year when the weather was extremely cold, and if one touched the iron armor with his bare hands, he might be torn off a piece of weakness from the cold. However, although the cold wind blew people into frowning and squinting their eyes, the glances passed on to each other were very excited. After Xu Wenhu's army arrived, the second army of the flower hat retreated to the second line as a reserve, and this time it was also a loose cavalry formation on a hill behind the right side of the army's formation. In the left front of the Second Army of Flower Hats, there was the central artillery fort of the Xia army, and the 20,000 infantry troops that protected the fort. The army formation of 50,000 infantry and 10,000 cavalry stretched out on both sides, tightly protecting the central artillery fort. After the large formation of the Chinese army, 40,000 cavalry were divided into armies and battalions, waiting for the order to attack. The Second Army was on the far right of the cavalry formation.

"The big war is coming, General Wang, how do you feel?" The marching commander, Adjutant General Shi Yu Decheng, said with a smile.

"It's a great day to kill." Wang Tongdeng shrugged his shoulders and looked at the Turks in front of him.

The sky was blue, sparkling as if crumpled by the wind, and the birds in the sky were extinct.

The white clouds in the sky kept flowing from north to south, as if escaping the murderous aura of the ground. The bitter north wind blew across the vast land where there was nothing, the flags of the two armies facing each other were blown to the sound of hunting, and the wheat straw and hay behind the army were blown into the sky. In the extremely cold weather and roaring winds, the Xia army and the Turkic warriors pulled their scarves to their mouths and noses, revealing only a pair of eyes with different emotions, the mouth and nose of the war horses sprayed white mist, and the horses' hooves smashed the ground uneasily. The large array of the Xia army was as quiet and cold as a harsh winter, and every military order sounded was clear and solemn. And the Turkic army resounded with the sound of chanting and prayers, and the more ordinary the people who violated the precepts, the more they hoped to be blessed by the gods. Farther on the periphery of the battlefield, in all directions, the infiltration and strangulation battles between the scouts intensified, and from time to time ownerless war horses appeared in everyone's field of vision.

The sun emerged from the dark clouds, the pale winter sun shone head-on, Wang Tongdeng squinted his eyes slightly, he saw the Turkic army on the opposite side moved, as if desperate, countless Turkic cavalry drove war horses towards the Xia army array, on the lonely winter wasteland, the iron hooves of tens of thousands of war horses shook the ground, the Turks shouted loudly and fought desperately, waving scimitars like the tide of the sea rushed to the Xia army array. Wang Tongdeng's breath stagnated, and the hot blood in his body burned as if it was uncontrollable.