In order to allow the wounded special forces to recuperate, Li Hao ordered to rest in Loulan City for twelve days, and waited until many seriously injured special forces could ride camels before they hit the road.

Before going on the road, Li Hao looked at the map and realized that in fact, this time the pursuit of horse thieves actually accelerated their journey, originally according to his itinerary, it was to cross the Yumen Pass from Dunhuang, and then through Yizhou to supply, to Xizhou, and finally to Tingzhou.

But in order to pursue the horse thieves, they traveled more than a thousand miles in nine days and came to the ancient city of Loulan.

Tingzhou is directly north of the ancient city of Loulan, as long as you go straight north from the ancient city of Loulan for more than 1,000 miles, you can reach Xizhou, and then from Xizhou to the north for more than 400 miles, you will arrive at Tingzhou.

But Li Hao knew that this road was not as easy to walk as it seemed on the surface, because before entering Xizhou, he would enter the Gaochang National District, and if he wanted to bypass Gaochang, then he would have to pass through the legendary Flame Mountain, and if he wanted to bypass the Flame Mountain, then he would have to travel more than 2,000 miles just by going around.

Li Hao took everyone to set off, all the way to the north, four days later traveled more than 250 miles, out of the desert, into the Gobi area, after another six days, more than 400 miles, the Gobi area ended, entered the desert area again, Li Hao took out the map and looked at it, can not go north, and then because the front is the Gaochang border.

For Gaochang, Li Hao was really a little afraid, so from that day on, he turned around and went northeast, bypassing Gaochang, and every ten miles he would take out his binoculars to look around, in case he encountered Gaochang's scouts.

Just turned to the eastward for a day, that afternoon, Li Hao found through the telescope that there were people haunting twenty miles away, but only appeared once and then turned around and left, Li Hao suddenly picked up his heart, the telescope began to keep his hand, every once in a while to observe, nearly evening, he found that there was a person riding a horse twenty miles away for a while and ran away.

Seeing this, Li Hao's eyebrows gradually frowned, and he called out loudly: "Peng Hai! ”

Peng Hai drove his horse to Li Hao's side: "My lord, what do you command?" ”

"I saw Gao Chang scouting the horse." Li Hao looked at him with a solemn face, and Peng Hai was stunned when he heard this, not knowing how to answer.

"Why don't we go back to Chang'an." Li Hao suddenly brought up the old matter again, Peng Hai almost didn't fall off the horse, is this still the bloody man of the Tang Dynasty who led thirty people to fight five hundred horse thieves, no matter how you look at it, he looks like a soft egg, and the difference in painting style is too great.

Lu Yun on the side frowned and said, "It's all here, how can I go back." ”

Li Yuanzhong also helped: "Poetry madness, don't disturb the morale of the army." ”

Li Hao frowned and said: "This place is only a hundred miles away from Gaochang, if the Gaochang army attacks, what should we do?" ”

Peng Hai thought for a while and said: "My lord, we can send scouts to scout in front, once we find that Gaochang is coming, we will meet a small group of enemies, and we will turn around and run away when we encounter a large group of people, we have few people, and they are all cavalry, they want to catch up with us but it is impossible." ”

Li Hao frowned and thought for a long time, nodded and said: "It can only be like this, if Gaochang really sends an army to attack, it will be clear that I will tear my face, and I can go to the court and ask for reinforcements." ”

"That's true." Peng Hai nodded and said, "So, my lord, what we need to do now is to be on guard day and night, and be careful. ”

Li Hao was silent for a long time when he heard this, and sighed helplessly: "I haven't arrived in Tingzhou yet, I'm so troublesome, if I get to Tingzhou, I don't know what kind of days I will live, alas...... Why is my life so miserable......"

Peng Hai didn't bother to listen to his complaints anymore, and returned to the rear and began to appoint scouts to guard a radius of twenty miles.

Twilight is approaching, Li Hao ordered to stop the army and set up camp, bury the pot to cook, that night, he ordered to double the number of sentry patrols, and then also asked the Huotou army to come to two copper basins, one to sleep on his own pillow, and one for Lu Yun to sleep on the pillow, the scout at night can only patrol the distance of ten miles, if it is farther, it is easy to get lost in the dark desert, ten miles of road seems to be quite far, but Li Hao knows that this is not a very safe distance, so he must still be cautious, after all, he is still very afraid of death.

When night fell, all the soldiers went to the camp to rest after dinner, and a half moon was obscured by white clouds, and a little light was sprinkled weakly, and the vast desert seemed to be covered with a veil.

At the third watch, the sky was gradually cloudy, covering the moonlight layer by layer, and the vast desert fell into darkness again.

After more than an hour, it was almost the end of the night, and this was also the time when people slept the deepest, a huge black shadow appeared in the dark desert, like a giant beast crawling quickly, heading straight for the direction where Li Hao's camp was.

The seven scouts sent by Peng Hai were patrolling a sand dune ten miles from the camp, when he suddenly felt a pain in his throat, a feather arrow had pierced his throat, and he fell to the ground and struggled weakly for a few times, and then he stopped moving.

A man in a black nightsuit slowly ascended the sand dunes, looking at the camp of the right guard, the corners of his mouth raised slightly, revealing a sinister smile.

At the same time, in other places, all the Right Xiaowei scouts were assassinated, and this group of assassins were all dressed in night clothes, came on foot, and had been lurking in the night, so the Right Xiaowei scouts couldn't detect them at all, which was in response to the saying that open guns are easy to dodge and dark arrows are difficult to prevent.

After a long time, a large group of horse thieves arrived, densely packed, with more than 1,000 people, and the assassin hurriedly stepped forward and knelt down to greet him: "General, the enemy scouts have all been killed." ”

The first man in the scarlet cloak snorted coldly: "Pay attention to the words, we are horse thieves now." ”

The assassin hurriedly changed his words: "Yes, the villain should be damned, the big boss!" ”

"Pass my orders," the leader ...... said in a deep voice, "Slowly approach the enemy camp, Zhang Huan, you take five hundred men to the west, fight me in front and back, kill everyone and then rob the property." ”

"Yes!" A middle-aged man took the order, left the brigade with five hundred people, and headed northwest.

The leader led a large group of men and horses to slowly approach Li Hao's military camp, the reason why they were so slow was to approach quietly, and then kill the other party by surprise, which is a common trick to attack the enemy camp at night.

However, the general night attack on the enemy camp is to hit more with less, after all, the fewer people the less easy to expose, with a thousand people sneak attack, such a number of people is really a bit much, fortunately here is a desert, the ground earthquake transmission ability is poor, to change to the land, so many horses walking, even if it is not a wild gallop, close to the eight miles will be discovered.

This leader also calculated the desert terrain correctly, so he decided to use so many men and horses to attack at night, but he never expected that Li Hao was extremely vigilant now because he found their scout horses during the day, even if he sleeps with a copper basin, what is the use of a copper basin, in fact, it is similar to the effect of a stethoscope, as long as the ground vibrates slightly, through the resonance of the copper basin, it can produce a larger sound, the larger the copper basin, the better the effect.

Li Hao and Lu Yun slept in the same tent, their copper basin made a slight sound, although the sound was very small, their ears were close to the copper basin, and it was difficult to hear it. The two woke up at the same time, looked at each other and got up together and shouted: "Enemy attack!" ”

"Drip filter filter-" The crisp whistle in Li Hao's tent spread for three or four miles, and everyone rushed out of the camp tent with their blades in their hands, and the right guards went to ride horses, and twenty-eight special forces quickly protected the female dependents behind them.

"Enemy attack, everyone goes into combat readiness!" Li Hao shouted after walking out of the camp, then raised his binoculars and looked towards the north. ”

Lu Yun hurriedly asked, "What's wrong?" ”

"Thousands of horse thieves!" Li Hao exclaimed, and suddenly shook his head again, "No, these are not horse thieves, they are in a neat and orderly queue when they ride horses, more like an army!" Could it be Gaochang's army? ”

Lu Yun's face changed, and he frowned and asked, "Is that a fight or an escape?" ”

Li Hao turned his head to look at Peng Hai, and asked with a solemn face: "Five hundred to one thousand, are you confident?" ”

Peng Hai said proudly: "My Tang cavalry is invincible in the world!" ”

"Good!" When Li Hao heard this, he suddenly became arrogant, and said coldly, "Everyone listen to the order and extinguish half of the braziers in the camp!" ”

Li Hao gave an order, and in a moment, half of all the braziers in the camp were extinguished, and the entire camp became gloomy, barely visible. Li Hao looked at the enemy with a telescope again, and the telescope ranged showed that the enemy was still four thousand meters away, that is, eight miles, and seeing that they were still moving slowly, it seemed that they did not notice the movement on their side, no wonder, they did not have night vision binoculars, and the warning signal just now was Li Hao's whistle, the whistle was sharp, the transmission ability was poor, and it should not be heard six miles away.

"If you dare to sneak attack us, then I will invite you into the urn." Li Hao snorted coldly and beckoned, "Everyone come with me and go to the back of the sand dunes." ”

There is a sand dune more than a mile southeast of their camp, relying on the sand dunes to camp can effectively resist the wind and sand blown by the southeast wind, this is the common sense of the desert march, Li Hao is ready to hide behind the sand dunes to counter the sneak attack of the enemy.

They had just crossed the sand dunes, Li Hao suddenly noticed that something was wrong, picked up the telescope and looked into the distance, and was suddenly startled, only to see another group of people approaching from the west, there were still eight miles from here, he hurriedly climbed to the top of the sand dunes alone, and looked around, for fear that there were other people and horses, after making sure that there were only these two teams, Li Hao walked down the sand dunes, pointed to the dark night, and said: "Eight miles to the west, there is also a group of people and horses coming to our side, about five hundred people, if my guess is correct, it should be with the group of people from the north." ”

Peng Hai was shocked when he heard this: "They are preparing to attack the two armies? ”

"Yes, they're smart." Li Hao said, "Now it seems that there are 1,500 of them in total, since they divide their troops to attack, let's break them down individually, and deal with these 500 people in the west first, what does General Peng think?" ”

"Yes." Peng Hai nodded.

"Then let's strike." Li Hao said, "Try not to let the thousand-man team in the north find out." ”

Li Hao and they ran quickly to the west, rushed for five miles, and began to slow down, at this time, the distance between the two sides was less than two miles, Li Hao ordered all the soldiers to line up in place, prepare bows and wait for the attack.

The five hundred people led by Zhang He had not yet discovered the movement in front of them, and continued to move forward, the two teams were only two hundred meters apart, and Li Hao shouted: "Shoot!" ”

Five hundred right guards raised their bows and threw them at 45 degrees to the sky, with the help of the power of the southeast wind, the arrows fell into the local crowd like a torrential rain, and the sound of people turning over on their backs suddenly came from the opposite side, and the leader Zhang He was taken aback, and hurriedly ordered: "The archers return fire!" ”

Hearing this order, Li Hao smiled coldly, and suddenly whistled, and all the cavalry put away their bows and arrows and rushed out.

In the case of long-distance, the archers are very cavalry, but at this moment Li Hao and they took the lead, the other party was attacked by the rain of arrows and caused chaos after actually thinking about using a bow and arrow to fight back, at this time Li Hao ordered the cavalry to attack, the other party estimated that the bow and arrow were prepared, and the cavalry had already rushed to the front.