Since most of the Xiongnu attacks on the border occurred in the spring, the villagers were defenseless. In addition, it had just snowed, and the villagers stayed in the village, and no one went up to the mountains to cut firewood, hunt, or work in the fields, so the whole village was destroyed. Of the 476 members of the village, all but 37 young women were taken captive by the Huns, and none of them were spared.

At this time, in Liangzhou, except for a few counties, the other local armies had not yet been reorganized, and many places were still defended by powerful private armies and Qiang tribes. After receiving the news of the Xiongnu's invasion of the border, the local governors, who had long been accustomed to it, reported it layer by layer, and it was already two days later when Huang Zhong and Jia Xu, who were stationed in Longxian, received the report.

Huang Zhong's army has 10,000 cavalry, although the number of this cavalry is not much, but they are all left directly after the pacification of Guanzhong and Xiliang, and it can be said that it is the strongest cavalry unit in the entire Han army. With such a powerful cavalry in hand, Huang Zhong naturally could not let the Huns spread wild in his own land. Therefore, Huang Zhong immediately ordered Wei Yan to lead 3,000 cavalry to the accident site, and he then sent 20,000 infantry to reinforce it.

As Fu Zhu expected, the tactics adopted by these Hun cavalry were to grab and leave, although Wei Yan's marching speed was fast, when he arrived there, there was no Hun cavalry for a long time. However, the situation in the village still surprised Wei Yan and his soldiers, and the villagers were slaughtered everywhere, the cruel Huns did not spare even their children under the age of a month, and some women were even naked in pools of blood, all of whom were inhumanly ravaged before they died.

Seeing this, the soldiers were all stunned and shouted for revenge for the dead villagers. There had been no snow in the last few days, and there were still deep horseshoe prints on the snow, and if you followed these hoof prints, you might be able to find the place where the Huns were stationed.

However, if it is really tracked, it will definitely go out of the border of the Han Dynasty. Liu Xin has extremely strict requirements for military discipline, not to mention that Wei Yan has also been reprimanded with a cane, without an order from above, Wei Yan will not dare to cross the border to pursue without any circumstances.

On the one hand, Wei Yan ordered the collection of the bodies of the villagers who were killed, and on the other hand, he sent people to the county government to collect the household registration book of the village, and at the same time sent detectives to inspect the surrounding villages and towns to inform the villagers to take precautions. As a result of the complete household registration, it was quickly counted how many villagers were killed and taken captive in the Xiongnu raid on the border.

Jia Xu was originally from Liangzhou, and he was very clear about the situation of the Xiongnu raiding the border, and he keenly felt that it was unusual for such a thing to happen just in winter, so he used a red chicken feather letter to urgently report to Xiangyang.

By the time the cavalry brigade mobilized by Liu Xin arrived in Liangzhou one after another, Huang Zhong had already transferred 50,000 foot soldiers to the border, set up ten camps, and sent a large number of reconnaissance cavalry sentry posts to prevent the Huns from attacking the border people again. And the people of other villages on the border were also mobilized and kept on duty day and night, just in case.

Liu Xin's cavalry gathered in Liangzhou was as many as 100,000, and these cavalry belonged to different legions, so Liu Xin designated Xu Huang as their temporary commander. Xu Huang is Liu Xin's sworn brother and one of the first generals to follow Liu Xin, so everyone naturally has no objections.

Hearing that Liu Xin ordered a counterattack against the Huns, Huang Zhong and Wei Yan were excited, immediately got up, and said: "General Xu, Liangzhou is the place where my Fifth Army is stationed, and the Huns dare to attack, and it is incumbent on the two of us to be the vanguard!" ”

Zhang Fei shouted loudly: "Hey, I came all the way here, but I didn't enjoy the scenery of Liangzhou, this head formation is none other than me." ”

Xu Huang said with a smile: "Don't fight, the lord has already made arrangements before leaving, and this time he will attack the Huns, and he will go hand in hand in five ways." ”

The generals couldn't help but get excited, if the troops were divided into five routes, everyone would have a chance, no wonder Liu Xin wanted to transfer so many people. In fact, if it weren't for their persuasion, Liu Xin would have wanted to come here herself.

Xu Huang waved his hand and said in a deep voice: "The lord has an order, the Huns invaded my borders, killed my people, and the crimes should be returned tenfold!" ”

The generals glanced at each other and secretly calculated. They had already learned that the Xiongnu raided the border, killing a total of 439 villagers and abducting 37 women. That is to say, they had to kill at least 4,390 Huns and capture 370 Hun women in this attack before they could complete the task. This order was given to Xu Huang by Liu Xin alone before leaving, and Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun and others did not know.

Zhao Yun was benevolent, and said: "Second brother, has the lord explained that this attack on the Huns will only kill young and strong men, or will there be no distinction between old and weak women and children?" ”

Xu Huang frowned, and said: "What the lord means is that this time is not a head-on battle with the Xiongnu, but mainly to find their tribal settlements, kill their men, take away their horses, cattle and sheep, abduct young women, and burn their tents and utensils. The lord said that in this attack, everyone is only allowed to carry five days of dry food, and if they want food and grass supplies, they will grab it from those Xiongnu tribes! ”

Zhao Yun said in surprise: "In this way, wouldn't we be the same as those Huns." ”

Zhang Fei laughed and said: "No matter what you do, if the eldest brother has an order, just do it according to the eldest brother's requirements." Besides, if he is only allowed to rob us, we are not allowed to rob him? ”

The generals laughed.

Xu Huang slapped the table, stood up and said, "What Yide said is true! The lord also said the same, to fight for a tooth for a tooth, to fight violence with violence, and to wash blood with blood! ”

"Yes, a tooth for a tooth, a violent counter to violence, a blood wash!"

There was a roar of anger in the big tent, and even Zhao Yun was angry!

Xu Huang raised his hands slightly and said: "Generals, according to the order of the lord general, the five generals Zhang Fei, Zhao Yun, Wei Yan, Ma Chao, and Pang De each led 10,000 cavalry to attack the Xiongnu by separate routes. The two generals, Huang Zhong and Sun Ce, responded to the left and right. ”

All the generals gave up their hands to receive the order, but they heard Sun Ce bow and say: "General Xu, the last general is willing to be a pioneer, please ask the general for permission!" ”

Xu Huang's face sank, and he said, "Sun Ce, this is an arrangement made by the lord himself, do you want to listen to it?" Hmph, why doesn't Xu want to carry the big axe and gallop across the field! ”

Sun Ce didn't dare to say anything more, and stepped aside.

This expedition was indeed arranged by Liu Xin personally. People are always a little selfish, now Sun Ce is also Liu Xin's son-in-law, Liu Xin doesn't want Sun Ce to be harmed, so he sent him to Liangzhou, to put it bluntly, it's just to let him come to gild, how can he let him rush to the front to take risks.

Xu Huang saw that all the generals had no objections, and continued: "The lord strictly ordered, first, not to ** women, second, not to hide property, and third, not to lose equipment, and to violate the order will be punished by the army!" ”

As soon as this order was given, the expressions of all the generals were all one, the first two were relatively easy to do, and the last one was a little difficult. But this is also a matter of no choice, last time Zhang Liao lost four military horses in Xuzhou, which sounded the alarm for Liu Xin. Whether those four military horses were obtained by Liu Bei or Tao Qian, there was nothing remarkable, but once they were obtained by the Huns, it would make them like a tiger. What's more, these equipment, from stirrups and horseshoes to sabers and cavalry bows, any one of them can raise the combat effectiveness of the grassland cavalry to a higher level, how can Liu Xin not be cautious.

Having witnessed the death of the villagers, Wei Yan insisted on choosing the middle route, which was the direction in which the horseshoe prints in the snow followed. With Xu Huang's permission, Wei Yan took 10,000 cavalry and embarked on a vast journey under the first rays of the morning sun. These 10,000 cavalry belonged to the Fifth Legion, and they stayed in Liangzhou for the longest time. Because Liu Xin's troops have a tradition of helping the common people, they often help the common people to do some things, and they have the deepest relationship with the local people, so they hate the Xiongnu attack on the border the most. Therefore, the advance of this team was particularly fast, and in the evening, they appeared in a valley, and it could already be seen that the horseshoe prints around them were disorganized, indicating that the camp of the Huns who had attacked the Han border was not far from here.

Wei Yan raised his hand to restrain the team, took out a cylindrical thing from his arms, rested it on his eyes, and looked into the distance. This is something that the research institute has just produced, and it's called clairvoyance. In fact, it is a telescope made under the guidance of Liu Xin and Ma Yun. Because there is no glass, the lenses on the clairvoyant are all made of crystal, which is naturally very valuable, and only these high-ranking generals can equip them.

Of course, if you say it's clairvoyance, you can't really see thousands of miles away. However, through this clairvoyance, Wei Yan could clearly see that there was a camp several miles away, with several bonfires lit inside, and many people were dancing around the bonfires. Wei Yan turned his head and ordered: "Everyone get off the horse and rest, eat some dry food!" ”

Every soldier carried a long cloth bag, and Wei Yan was no exception. The cloth bag contained the dry food fried noodles they had brought on their trip. In this era, marching and fighting still need to bury pots to make rice, but for long-distance attacks, burying pots to make rice is obviously not suitable, Liu Xin urgently needs to develop a kind of marching rations for his cavalry, and Ma Yun happens to know how to make fried noodles. In later generations, there was a strong army, a bite of fried noodles and a mouthful of snow, defeating a powerful enemy armed to the teeth, Ma Yun's grandfather was a member of this army, when she was a child, she listened to her grandfather tell the story of their era, so she was extremely impressed by the fried noodles.

Chow mein was simple to make and easy to carry, but Xu Huang only distributed five days' rations to everyone, because this sortie was only to teach the Huns a lesson, and he did not plan to fight on the grassland for a long time. Moreover, it is winter now, and it is not easy for war horses to eat grass, so they need to carry horse feed with the army. The carrying capacity of war horses is limited, and in order to ensure the needs of war horses, the only way to minimize the rations of the soldiers is to do so.

The soldiers carried only five days' rations, that is, after two and a half days, they had to return to the territory of Dahan. However, all the soldiers wanted to be able to kill farther, so they cherished this limited ration, and they were not willing to eat a little from the time they set out.