10,000 troops arrived in Liucheng under the leadership of Du Yunsi, the general of the tiger Benlang, and Yang Shanhui personally led everyone out of the city to greet him, and Du Yunsi hugged his fists at the gate of the city and said with a smile: "The marshal hopes that Liucheng can not only hold back the Khitan army, but also the Goguryeo army, I am willing to obey Yang Taishou's dispatch and unite to defend Liucheng." ”

The arrival of 10,000 reinforcements made Yang Shanhui completely relieved, the city of Liucheng was not damaged much, the key was that the defenders suffered heavy losses, so that they could no longer cope with the large-scale attack of the Goguryeo, and the replenishment of 10,000 fresh troops restored the strength of the defenders.

Yang Shanhui hurriedly said: "Please let the soldiers go into the city to rest, and I will tell the general about the situation of defending the city." ”

10,000 troops marched into the city, but the 10,000 troops did not rest, and after entering the barracks, they threw themselves into active combat preparations.

At this time, Liucheng was not deserted at all, Li Chun and his craftsmen and people were going all out to repair various defensive weapons and facilities, and the Khitans did not take away tens of thousands of pieces of wood to become the trophies of Liucheng, and they used these woods to remake trebuchets and large shields.

In addition, the Sui army had accumulated a great deal of experience in defending the city, and they knew which defensive measures were more effective in hindering the enemy's attack, and all the soldiers were unanimously in favor of using thistle thorns and poison sticks to trap their feet, two venomous hidden weapons that were as annoying as the poisonous mosquitoes in summer.

For this purpose, Li Chun and more than a dozen craftsmen invented an open-type trebuchet, which can throw out more than 1,000 small tribulus stingers at a time, and the range of throwing is very wide, and when attacking, the enemy is even more defenseless.

In addition, the use of hay bales to burn the battering ram left a deep impression on everyone, they all realized that burning the ladder and the siege ladder would be equally effective, so Yang Shanhui specially ordered thousands of people to be responsible for preparing this kind of hay bale, not only hay, but also small shrubs and dry branches are equally flammable, and there are dead bushes all over the mountains outside Liucheng, which are mixed with sulfur, fire oil and other combustibles to make the burning more violent.

On the city wall, Yang Shanhui accompanied Du Yunsi to visit the defense of the city, only to see a team of soldiers in cooperation with the training to break the siege ladder method, twenty people in a group, the soldiers held axes, forks, claws, over and over again skillfully cooperated with the training, and from time to time someone fell down in the middle, this is to imitate being shot down by an arrow, at this time someone must come to replace the soldier who was hit by the arrow.

Du Yunsi looked quite interesting, at this time he found a strange phenomenon, it seems that the Sui soldiers are different, one is leather armor, the other is Mingguang armor, but the helmet and weapons are all the same, he pointed to the two kinds of soldiers and asked: "May I ask General Duan, why are the two soldiers wearing different?" ”

Duan Xianda, who accompanied him on the tour, explained with a smile: "The leather armor is a militia soldier, and the Mingguang armor is the official Sui army, and the two are indeed different. ”

Du Yunsi was surprised, these militia soldiers were all highly motivated and brave, not at all like ordinary militia soldiers who cowered or listless, they were completely the momentum of regular soldiers, how did they train this?

On the other side, Lu Chifeng, who was in charge of the command of the militia group, seemed to understand Du Yunsi's thoughts, and said lightly: "These militia soldiers were trained in the bloody battle with the Khitan army, and the cowardly ones were killed, on the contrary, the brave ones survived, if it weren't for the lack of Mingguang armor, I would definitely let the militia soldiers equip them, and after this war, these militia soldiers can be turned into regular soldiers." ”

"I see!"

Du Yunsi nodded, turned back to Yang Shanhui and said: "When I was leaving, the marshal told me that the people had also paid a heavy price for defending Liucheng this time, and he put forward the idea of treating everyone equally, that is, the dead militia soldiers should be compensated according to the official soldiers, and the meritorious militia soldiers should also be rewarded according to the official soldiers, including the Juntian reward, I believe the marshal has already said it to the Taishou in the letter." ”

"General Du don't worry, I have already written a military report according to the intention of His Royal Highness King Qi, which is exactly the same as what General Du said."

Yang Shanhui didn't speak, he had something on his mind, the King of Qi only sent 10,000 troops to Liucheng, he was very worried about whether there would be no other army, and the defense of the entire Liaodong had to be borne by them.

"General Du, is His Royal Highness the King of Qi only planning to arrange 10,000 troops in Liaodong?" After hesitating for a moment, Yang Shanhui still directly asked about his worries.

This is actually Duan Xianda and Lu Chifeng's worries, the two of them looked at Du Yunsi together, Du Yunsi saw the three of them worried, so he smiled slightly: "The marshal is very thoughtful, he knows that the battle between Liucheng and the Khitan has been weakened a lot, so he will not let Liucheng bear the same attack as the Khitan again, I don't hide it from the three, this time I came to Liaodong with a total of 40,000 troops, in addition to me to help Liucheng, there are also General Pei's 30,000 cavalry, he has the same task as ours, to drag the Goguryeo army of the western expedition to death on the land of Liaodong." ”

The three of them were immediately overjoyed, Pei Xingyan's 30,000 cavalry was actually in Liaodong, so Liucheng would be safe and sound

Early in the morning, a team of more than 100 Sui cavalry was galloping eastward along the White Wolf Water, this cavalry was very well-equipped, each cavalry was equipped with a steel halberd and a horned bow, a blood eagle helmet, a bright light armor, a horizontal knife, a round shield, a deer antler, a flying fox claw, a cow tendon rope, including a strong war horse and a thick woolen blanket, sufficient dry food bags and water bottles.

People who are familiar with the equipment of the Sui army can recognize at a glance that this is the scout cavalry, and the biggest difference between them and the regular cavalry is the main weapon, of course, the antlers, flying fox claws and ox tendon ropes are also special equipment, but these small objects are not obvious, and what makes people see the difference at a glance is that the weapons are different.

The regular cavalry used a war lance, which was one foot and three feet long, while the stainless steel halberd was only five feet long and weighed twenty pounds, which could be hung directly on the saddle, which was very easy to carry and extremely durable, and it gradually replaced the short spear as the main battle weapon of the scout cavalry.

This scout cavalry belongs to the second battalion of the scout army, led by the second battalion Lang general Sun Ying personally, Sun Ying is Sun Xuanya's nephew, when he captured Sun Xuanya alive was named the scout brigade commander by Zhang Xuan, these years have accumulated merit and promoted to the eagle strike Lang general, in charge of five hundred scout cavalry, this time to defend the Liaodong campaign, he was ordered to lead the cavalry of the battalion to follow Pei Xingyan's 30,000 cavalry into Liaodong, responsible for performing some special tasks.

At this time, Sun Ying led a hundred cavalry has penetrated deep into Liaodong, about 80 miles west of Yancheng, along the White Wolf Water to the east, the north is the majestic and majestic Yiwulu Mountain, between the mountain range and the White Wolf Water is a hundred miles wide plain, most of which is covered by reckless forests, which is an important strategic passage to Liaoshui, and it is also a necessary place for the Goguryeo army.

At this moment, one of the horsemen pointed ahead and shouted: "Look, there is white smoke over there!" ”

Sun Ying also saw the white smoke, he immediately reined in the war horse, and observed for a while, the white smoke was about two miles away, and the smoke column was very thin, not like a large-scale army, and if it was a large-scale army stationed, then they would have entered the garrison area and were hunted by the ambushed patrols.

But considering that they would encounter Goguryeo's outpost spies at any time, Sun Ying felt that it was better to act cautiously, and he immediately shouted: "First Fire will send two brothers to take a look, and the rest of the soldiers will take shelter in the woods!" ”

The cavalry turned around and ran towards the woods not far to the north, while the two cavalrymen made a detour in the direction of the white smoke in the distance.

In the woods, the scout cavalry hurried to eat dry food and drink water, it had just rained here, the ground was very wet, the war horses gathered together to leisurely nibble on the tender grass with dew on the ground, Sun Ying sat on a big tree, engrossed in drawing something on a map.

His main task in Liaodong this time was to investigate the situation of the residents in Liaodong, so that the western expedition to Goguryeo could not get food supplements in Liaodong, he sent twenty cavalry squads to investigate in various places, and Sun Ying himself was responsible for investigating Yan County, so far, he found fourteen small towns and villages, but only three villages still have more than 200 households, the remaining eleven villages are not inhabited, all the civilians know that the Goguryeo army is coming, and they have responded to the call of the government to help the old and the young to take refuge in Beiping County.

At this time, the sound of horses' hooves was heard outside the woods, and a soldier reported: "General Sun, the two brothers have returned, and it seems that there is a situation." ”

Sun Ying hurriedly put away the map and walked quickly towards the trees, only to see five or six people on horseback, the first two were the soldiers he sent to investigate the situation, and behind them were three bearded men, wearing black left-hand robes with round necks and narrow sleeves.

"It's a Khitan!" Several soldiers whispered.

"Don't mess around, they're not Khitans."

Sun Ying drank his subordinates and hurried out, although the appearance of these three people is very similar to the Khitan people, but the Khitan men's clothing is mainly gray and earthy yellow, and there is only one ethnic group that likes to dye their clothes black, and that is the Su Mo Yan people.

Two of his men stepped forward and saluted, "General Hui, the white smoke was lit when they were cooking, there are a hundred of them, and these three people are their heads." ”

The three people hurriedly turned over and dismounted, and the first elder man stepped forward and bowed and said, "See the general!" ”

Sun Ying was quite surprised that he actually spoke fluent official dialect, and smiled back: "You are-"

"We are the subordinates of the chief of the Evil Chieftain Tudiji, the villain's name is Meng Chi, and we went to Liucheng to report the news on the order of the chief."

Sun Ying suddenly, it turned out to be Tudiji's subordinates, Tudiji is the leader of the Sumo Yao, they have lived in the Buyeo area for generations, and later were constantly invaded by the Goguryeo people, Tudiji was forced to lead the tribe to migrate westward, surrendered to the Sui Dynasty, Sui Emperor Yang Guang awarded him as the Golden Purple Guanglu Doctor, Liaoxi Taishou, and placed his tribe in the north of Liucheng, Tudiji had led his own soldiers to follow the Sui army to attack Goguryeo, and recaptured Buyeo City, after the Goguryeo Campaign, they stayed in Buyeo, and then there was no news.

"What kind of message did you go to Liucheng to report?" Sun Ying asked with a smile.

"General Hui, the Goguryeo army has crossed the Liaoshui, Liaodong is in danger, and our chief hopes that Liucheng will be ready for defense as soon as possible." (To be continued.) )