twin moon

Chapter 7, Scene [-] First Acquaintance [-]

In the seventh year of Yuansui, the tenth day of March.The twin moons rise, and the galaxy dims.

On the south bank of Yugu Lake, under the gate of Ye Guozhou's boat division camp, a burst of rapid drumbeats suddenly sounded.Then a sentry shouted "urgent report" and broke into the large tent of the Chinese army. He almost stepped on the pot of charcoal fire placed next to the tent door for heating. Take a jump.

The participating general is the son-in-law of Princess Ye who has been married for many years, and his name is Dou Kuo.At this moment, my interest was disturbed, and I waved my hand impatiently, signaling the thinly dressed singers around me to back off, then raised my eyebrows and shouted: "What a shame! What happened to make you panic like this?" !"

"My lord, forgive me! Yes, the scouts sent out earlier are back!"

The sentry guard was dripping with cold sweat, and the color on his face had already faded.

Seeing this situation, the son-in-law finally realized that something was wrong, he struggled to lift his dangling body from the ground off the ground, but in a hurry, he knocked over the cups and dishes on the table, and poured the full wine The whole body was covered, and the tent immediately turned into a mess.But he didn't even care about ordering someone to wipe it, he just stared at the other person's eyes:
"You mean, the flames of war at the foot of Qinglan Mountain——eventually burned to Yugu Lake?!"

Qinglan Mountain is located on the border between Wanbo and Wanzhou, at the border of Weiliang, Huaiyou, Nanhua and Chengguo, the four major powers, and there are constant swords.However, although the countries fought fiercely for years, the country of Ye was saved from the disaster of war because of the barrier of Yugu Lake and Mingshui at the foot of the mountain, and it was peaceful.

Yugu Lake got its name because of the red and white plums growing all over the lake.But in recent years, Huaiyou retreated to the west of Qinglan Mountain one after another, and the dark clouds of war have already descended on Wanzhou.And this season, the banks of Yugu Lake, where spring plums are supposed to be fragrant, can sometimes smell the bloody smell mixed in the south wind.

The sentinel didn't respond any more, but shook his head in fear.Seeing this, Dou Kuo also knew that the situation was not good, he didn't even care about putting on his half-uncovered armor again, so he hurriedly pushed the other party away, opened the tent door and looked out.

Under the moonlight, a wounded war horse was dragging its owner's body in front of the Chinese army tent.The horse was obviously frightened, and it took four or five strong soldiers to hold it back.But the corpse that was still hanging on the horse didn't have a fatal wound from a knife or an axe all over its body, only an irregular circular blood hole was exposed on its forehead.

"Sent more than ten riders, and only this one came back?!"

Seeing that the elite scouts under his command were killed in such a strange way, the general's drunkenness suddenly woke up, and he walked quickly into the account, picked up the bamboo tube with the token on the table, and poured it all on the table with a bang. on the ground:
"The hussars battalion listened to the order, and immediately dispatched ten chiefs and five officials, led by Zuo Duwei, and led a hundred cavalry in heavy armor to look for them! If you want to see people, if you want to see people, if you want to see corpses!"

The military orders of Ye State are strict.After the soldiers and horses in the camp were ordered, they were ready in a short while.But until the branches on the moon, there was no sound, and the hundreds of cavalry soldiers turned back empty-handed.

"Quickly tell me, what happened at the foot of Qinglan Mountain?"

Seeing Captain Zuo entering the account, the son-in-law, who was fidgeting before the case, immediately asked angrily.

Zuo Duwei arched his hands and said, but he couldn't hide his panic:

"The subordinates are incompetent. There are piles of dead bodies under Qinglan Mountain. Only some stumps wearing the armor of the Ye army were found. I am afraid that the other nine scouts have already been buried in the rebellion army by now."

"They just went to the front to spy on the situation of the battle. How could they be easily involved in the battle formations of both sides? What about the result of the battle between Wei Liang and Huai You, and who will win in the end?"

"Subordinates, subordinates don't know."

"How can you not know? You are really a waste! You have been with me for so many years, and you have seen many battles. Don't you even understand some basic judgments on the battlefield!" Dou Kuo obviously didn't like this answer from his subordinates. Satisfied, "If Ye Kingdom is involved in a war that doesn't belong to us today because of these scouts, the Lord will hold you and me to blame!"

Hearing what Shangguan said, Captain Zuo was startled immediately, knelt down on one knee and laid down on the ground, telling the truth about the frontline military situation that he had reserved before:
"My subordinates, please speak out boldly. Judging from the various traces on the battlefield today, Wei Liang and Huai You seem to have lost their entire army before they confronted each other! The general just thought it was too incredible, so he didn't dare to report it."

Before the words fell, the general had realized that the situation was wrong, and even the next words were not suitable for speaking in front of the attendants in the tent, so he waved his hands vigorously to make them back out, and continued to question with his voice pressed down:

"What nonsense are you talking about! What do you mean no confrontation? Could it be that there is a third party ambushing and attacking in this battle, and the fisherman will benefit from it?"

"Everything that the last general said is true, please tell the general! Almost all the soldiers who died in battle at the foot of Qinglan Mountain died in their respective formations. There is at least a thousand steps between the two army formations. And there are no traces on the corpses. The knife wounds left the same blood holes as the foreheads of our scouts, ranging from two or three to as many as a dozen. The death was horrifying, and what was even more directly turned into a puddle of scorched flesh! The subordinates didn't believe it either, but in the end they found this in the wounds of some corpses—"

As Captain Zuo said, he used his index finger to pull out an iron-black object from under his belt, held it in his palm and handed it to the other party.

The son-in-law frowned, and picked up the blood-stained thing with two fingers in disgust—the blood on the thing had already dried up, but under the filth, it seemed to be a lead bullet. , glowing gray under the candlelight, showing some irregular shapes.

"What's so weird about this thing?"

"My subordinates don't know either. But it seems that it was the one that caused Wei Liang and Huai You's army to annihilate Qinglan Mountain."

Captain Zuo fell behind, and the tent suddenly fell into a long silence.Dou Kuo looked up at the bloodless subordinate, knowing that the other party's words were true, he tilted his body involuntarily, and sat heavily on the small table beside him, but his palm was scratched out by a piece of luminous glass on it that was broken earlier. A slender wound, bleeding profusely.

He immediately sucked in a breath of cold air, cursed in a low voice and pressed the wound to stop the bleeding, when suddenly there was a loud noise from outside the door, and the drums under the shaft door sounded again like a shower.Then a sergeant stumbled into the tent, covered in blood, his exposed face and hands were burnt to the point where there were not a few intact skins left!

The sergeant couldn't say a word, but opened his eyes full of fear, stretched out his finger to the outside of the tent, and died.

The general and Zuo Duwei looked at each other, and rushed out of the tent one after the other, only to see the flames in the camp soaring into the sky, reflecting the night sky red.The fire that started from nowhere has spread to nearby tents and stables, causing the entire camp to be in chaos——

Hundreds of terrified horses rushed out of the burning stables and rampaged through the camp.The soldiers suffered from lack of water to fight the fire. Some of them were burned alive in the tent while they were still asleep. Others escaped the fire by chance, but fell under the iron hooves of their own horses. It's over half.

Dou Kuo didn't know how to deal with it for a while.Vaguely, he suddenly saw a group of soldiers who obviously did not belong to him rushing forward in the flames - they were holding strange weapons of different lengths, which were as thin as bamboo tubes, and they probably caused the loud noise.

"Enemy attack, enemy attack! Prepare quickly!"

Only then did the son-in-law finally come to his senses, he pulled out the saber from his waist with a swipe, and led the soldiers to rush forward with high spirits.However, just two steps away, there was a "bang" in the darkness not far away, and when he turned his head, he saw Captain Zuo who was standing beside him was shot between the eyebrows by the enemy, and his head was stuck in the helmet. The inside exploded, and the viscous liquid mixed with brains and blood was sprayed all over his face on the spot.

At this time Captain Zuo was far away from that team of enemy soldiers. Even a sharpshooter who can penetrate Yang with a hundred paces could not cause such powerful damage at this distance with the most powerful crossbow in the world.Fear made Dou Kuo quickly realize that the enemies who broke into the camp were using a weapon that he had never seen before, but it was more powerful than ordinary bows and crossbows!
He didn't dare to rush forward rashly, he quickly turned around and got back into his tent.Now the fire has spread to the vicinity, and the tent is as hot as a steamer.He couldn't find any pen or ink anywhere, so he reluctantly tore off the blood scab on the wound on his palm, dipped his fingers in the blood, and wrote a four-character emergency report on a piece of silk:

Battalion break quick help!

Immediately, he rolled the piece of silk tightly into a small roll, stuffed it into the thin bamboo tube tied to Mo Crow's feet in the cage, and let it out of the tent.

At the same time, there was another gunshot in the distance.The son-in-law standing in front of the tent suddenly felt as if his chest had been burned by a scalding flame, and there was a piercing pain.He lowered his head, only to see several irregular small holes appeared on the chest and abdomen armor, and blood was gurgling unstoppably from those holes.

The rapid blood loss made Dou Kuo lose his footing, and his legs gave way and he fell to the ground.He was still alive to watch a blurred figure of an enemy soldier holding a firearm rushing towards him. The deadly cylinder-shaped strange weapon in his hand glowed fiercely in the firelight reflecting the sky.

Then the enemy soldiers raised the cylinder and aimed it at the sky, and with a "boom", a tongue of flame half a foot high was sprayed out.Fortunately, the black crow that was released earlier had already rushed to the sky and merged into the dark night, so it couldn't hit it anymore.

What the enemy used was indeed a mysterious firearm that Ye's army had never seen before!
"Did you find anything?"

Another man stepped forward quickly, with a broad cloak covering his head, who looked like the leader of the raiders.

The enemy soldier holding a firearm shook his head: "There is not even a single clue in the camp. It seems that our information was wrong. It seems that the map has never been sent here."

"Then withdraw first, before the arrival of reinforcements."

"Where did you—on earth—know about the map?"

Before dying, the son-in-law asked with the last bit of strength.He knew it was impossible for the other party to answer his question, but he still tried his best to raise his head, trying to see the other party's face clearly before dying.But what he could see in his blurred vision was a gun with a black hole of death on his forehead, and a hideous sea snake mask on the face of the wielder!

(End of this chapter)