After getting out of the Yanmen Pass, the plateau found that there are indeed great changes outside the Yanmen Pass, the avenue out of the pass is re-repaired, although it is not as wide as the avenue in the pass, and the special road is divided, but it is not narrow, and it is very flat, even if it is in the pass, it can be regarded as the road of the second line.

On both sides of the road, a lot of fields have indeed been reclaimed, and some ditches have been dug to have a new gas image, but unlike the Guannai, along the road, there are almost no villages, only a few scattered houses, but every ten miles or so, there will be a small-scale earthen fort, and there is a road and the avenue to communicate, most of the residents outside the Guanwai live in this kind of earthen fort.

This is the plateau just entered the time of the Dai County, ordered to build an earthen fort outside the Yanmen Pass, in case of the invasion of the Huns, each earthen fort can accommodate five or six hundred to a thousand households, the number of people is as few as two or three thousand, as many as nearly five thousand. Although the scale of each earthen fort is different, but all are square structure, the fort wall is made of rammed earth blocks, about two zhang high, there are open door city towers on all sides, the four corners of the right earth fort are built with arrow towers, but the city tower is made of stone, and the shape of the beacon tower is used. And outside the wall, a ring of protective ditches with a width of up to two zhang was usually dug.

If such an earthen fort is in Yanmen Pass, of course, it is not a strong fortress, but the area outside Yanmen Pass is enough to resist the attack of the Huns, because the Huns are good at riding and shooting, but the ability to attack the fort is extremely poor, there is no large-scale siege equipment, at most there are only a few simple wooden ladders, to conquer these earthen forts, it is not easy.

The residents who live in the earthen fort are both attached to the grassland nomads, and a considerable part of them are Chinese people, some of them originally lived outside the Yanmen Pass, and were recruited by the army to move to the fortress, and some moved from the Yanmen Pass, because the land outside the gate can be reclaimed at will, although the tax is levied to settle in the fortress, but the tax paid is low in the pass, and the safety can be guaranteed, so it also attracts many residents in the pass to move out of the pass to open up the wasteland and farm. These residents worked or grazed in the fields outside the fort during the day, and returned to the fort to rest at night, once the Huns attacked, the city tower immediately lit a fire to warn, and the residents immediately fled back to the fort, and their personal safety could be basically guaranteed. At the same time, it is also the basis for levying taxes on residents outside the customs on behalf of the county government.

However, because the Xiongnu did not come much in recent years, so some residents had a fluke mentality, in order to avoid taxes, they did not settle in the earthen fort, but built houses outside the earthen fort to settle down, and they could also open up wasteland and farm. At present, such a group of people is only a very small minority, and the government is too lazy to care about them, so it will maintain the status quo for the time being.

In addition, there is another noteworthy phenomenon, that is, after some steppe nomads migrated to the fortress, they also changed their nomadic habits and began to learn to grow grain, after all, growing grain is more reliable than grazing, the harvest is guaranteed, and the danger is small, or grazing and growing grain in parallel, the government basically encourages the attitude of the government, and not only gives them seeds to the herdsmen who are willing to grow grain, but also sends people to teach them to farm. However, most of the steppe nomads still live a traditional nomadic life, after the beginning of spring, they take their cattle and sheep to find areas with abundant water and grass to graze, and return to settle in earthen forts in autumn and winter.

Because it was still far away from the Xiongnu at this time, the plateau also had the leisure to observe the scene outside the Yanmen Pass, and after walking for about 20 miles, I saw that Ah Ran Shi Qimo had gathered the men and horses of the Fan Yong Army, and was waiting for the brigade of the plateau on the side of the avenue.

After the two armies converged, they continued to march, and Ah Ran Shi begged Mo to say like a plateau: "My lord, I heard some brothers say that they heard some herdsmen at home last night that this time the Huns came to disturb Yanmen, but it was not the same small raid as before, but intended to go south to plunder on a large scale. ”

Gao Yuan said: "Why did the Huns go south this time?" ”

A Ran Shi begged and said: "It turned out that the last time the lord raided Yinshan, after the defeat of the Xiongnu, several tribes on the grassland took the opportunity to unite and attack the Xiongnu, as a result they fought on the grassland for several years, but these tribes still couldn't beat the Xiongnu in the end, and in the end they were either annexed by the Xiongnu, or they were exterminated, and then they were driven away to go away, and now the Xiongnu have annexed several tribes, and their strength has increased greatly, and there are no tribes on the grassland that can compete with the Xiongnu, so the Xiongnu are ready to plunder southward. ”

Plateau only then understands what is going on, it seems that his luck is not bad, if the Huns go south a year early, I am afraid that they will have a headache, and now that they have defeated Qin, they can also free up their hands to deal with the Huns, of course the plateau knows, like the Huns, the steppe nomads are born to defend bravely and warn, there is no reason to say, only admire the strong, so since the Huns want to plunder south, then don't be polite, give them a head-on blow, it is best to give the Huns another defeat in Yinshan.

At this time, Ah Ran Shi begged Mo and said: "Lord, the brothers know that this time they are going to fight the Huns, they are very excited, everyone has suffered a lot of losses from the Huns before, and now we have to let the Huns know that we are powerful, and when we meet the Huns in a while, it is best to let our Fan Yong Army fight the first battle." ”

It turned out that because the power of the Xiongnu on the grassland has expanded very strongly, most of the grassland nomads who migrated to settle outside Yanmen Pass were defeated by the Huns and forced to leave their original station, and the soldiers of the Fan Yong Army were composed of grassland nomads who moved to settle outside the Yanmen Pass, so they did not have a good impression of the Xiongnu, and in the past few years of belonging to the Dai County, the Fan Yong Army fought with the plateau in the south and the north, and made countless achievements, and also became one of the trump card armies in the Dai Army, and the spirit of the whole army was very high. Full of confidence, as soon as he heard that the Huns were coming to rob Yanmen again, he naturally rubbed his fists and sharpened his palms, and wanted to fight with the Huns, and it was good to breathe a bad breath.

Gao Yuan smiled: "Don't worry, if you really meet the Huns, there will definitely be no chance for the Fan Yong Army to fight, and then it will depend on your expression, the Fan Yong Army has fought well on the battlefield in the Central Plains in recent years, but now that you are back on the grassland, don't make a fool of yourself." ”

Ah Ran Shi begged and laughed: "Please rest assured, back to the grassland, our Fan Yong Army will only be stronger, and we will never let the lord down." ”

Because the group of men and horses were all cavalry, and they were marching along the main road, the speed of the march was very fast, and by noon, the army had gone more than fifty miles away, and it was only more than twenty miles away from the battlefield.

And along the way, there are constantly scouts to the plateau, Yuan Xuan to report the battle situation, although since last night, the Huns have been besieging an earthen fort, but because the earthen fort is very tightly guarded, and the Xiongnu did not bring any siege tools and equipment, the result is that at this time, still failed to attack the earthen fort.

The distance of more than 20 miles has almost entered the combat distance, so Gao Yuan and Yuan Xuan discussed it and decided to find a nearby earth fort, arrange the baggage and non-combatants carried in the earth fort, and the other troops were led by Gao Yuan and Yuan Xuan to rush to the rescue.

There are a lot of such earthen forts outside the Yanmen Pass, just two or three miles ahead, there is one, and after a while, the large group of people and horses rushed to the front of the earthen fort, because this place is very close to the battlefield, so the garrison of this earthen fort is very tight, the four gates are closed, the drawbridge is high, and the young and middle-aged men are guarding the fort wall, and there is indeed a bit of a strict fight.

Gao Yuan is also very satisfied with this, now it is difficult to invest more energy in the north to deal with the Xiongnu, so to prevent the surprise attack of the Xiongnu, mainly rely on the strength of the locals, now it seems that the preparation is indeed very good.

At this time, the people guarding the fort also saw the banner of the Dai army, although they did not know that Gao Yuan personally led the team, but they also knew that this was a man and horse from Yanmen Pass, so the residents on the city wall immediately let out a burst of cheers, and reinforcements arrived. So immediately he opened the gates of the city and let them into the fort.

Now Gao Yuan and Yuan Xuan of course did not have time to stay in the fort, Yuan Xuan only explained a few words to the lord of the fort, "Good life to guard the fort, don't be careless" and the like, and Gao Yuan ordered the vehicles, materials, and all the women of Yun Yao and the Bailing clan to stay in the fort, and left the female army and the Beiwei army to protect them in the fort, and the rest of the soldiers, as well as the men and women of the Bailing clan, the beasts, etc., all rushed to the battlefield with the two of them.

Because of the lack of vehicles and supplies, the speed of the march was faster, and although the men and horses were a little tired after a morning journey, the spirit of the whole army was still very good, and the morale was high, and in a short time, the brigade of men and horses arrived only five or six miles away from the battlefield. Gao Yuan ordered the whole army to rest on the spot temporarily, breathe a sigh of relief, and prepare for battle, and the heavy armored cavalry put on armor and prepared, while he and Yuan Xuan left, leading a hundred scout cavalry, rushing to the direction of the battlefield to observe the details of the Xiongnu.

The distance of five or six miles is in a blink of an eye, everyone looks from afar, only to see that there is indeed a team of Hun cavalry, stationed at a distance of about 300 steps in front of an earthen fort, the number of people is about 1,000 people, and there are two cavalry teams of more than 100 people, the guards gallop around the wall of the earthen fort, and continue to shoot arrows into the city, and there are constantly arrows on the fortress, to the Huns to return fire, from time to time there are also Hun cavalry arrows fall off the horse.

Everyone looked at it for a while, and Yuan Xuan said: "It seems that the Hun army really only has more than 1,000 people, and there are nearly 4,000 cavalry troops on our side, so it is too easy to deal with them." ”

Ling Feng said: "It is not difficult to defeat this Hun army, but they are all cavalry, and they are lighter than us, so his speed must not be below us, if we attack them head-on, I am afraid that before we arrive, they will run away, and it will be difficult for us to catch up." ”

Yuan Xuan said with a smile: "This is easy, we have nearly 4,000 cavalry, we can completely divide the troops into three ways, first assign two ways of men and horses, outflank from the left and right wings, and then attack from the front, so that the three-way attack can defeat the Hun army in one fell swoop, even if it can't completely annihilate this Hun army, but it can also make them suffer heavy losses." ”

Ling Feng nodded and said, "This tactic is very good. ”

Yuan Xuan said: "Lord, hurry up and order the transfer of troops." ”