Northern Dynasties

Chapter 154 Blood Sacrifice
If a workman wants to be good, he must first sharpen his weapon.

When you have determined what to do next and have selected your target, of course you have to check your own strength.

Because the original destination was Bianzhou Army Town, the armed forces under Li Tai's command could be said to be mobilized this time, all [-] tribal soldiers were mobilized.Together with the entourage of the entourage, a cavalry team of nearly [-] people was formed.

In the late Southern and Northern Dynasties when there were thousands of troops at every turn, such an armed force of several hundred people was not very impressive, but it should not be underestimated.Even some counties and counties, including a considerable number of Han and Hu tycoons, could not reach such a scale of armed forces.

Because these are the elite of Li Tai's trilogy, they are strong men who can be directly armed and put into battle, and each has certain bow and horse skills and combat experience.

Under normal conditions, such a cavalry team often has to be rationed with multiples or even twice the number of servicemen and support personnel, which can form a troop size of one to two thousand or more.

The [-]-man cavalry team can already carry out many conventional and unconventional cavalry formation tactics. When the battlefield environment and tactical coordination are superior, the barbarian tribe that has attacked tens of thousands of people can do it.

Although Jihu is fierce and difficult to tame, he can't make all the people soldiers.

The personnel composition of a Jihu tribe is usually divided into leaders and their direct ethnic groups, as well as elite soldiers and warriors who occupy dominant positions, farmers, herdsmen, handicraftsmen and other tribal people, and there are slaves who have no property or personal freedom at all.

The boundary between the latter two is not clear. The tribal people are equivalent to the private property of the leader, Qu Shuai. It is just that the former has been attached for a longer period of time, or has a skill, so the situation will be slightly higher than that of efforts that are completely consumable.

If there is any difference between the two, it is that the lowest slaves may not even have the right to reproduce.Because usually the Jihu tribe needs to control the population at a level that matches the output of the environment, otherwise the survival of the entire tribe will be greatly affected.

A Jihu tribe with thousands of people has only a small part of its core elite armed force, and it may not have as many people as Li Tai's.

The large number of other vassal populations have very low combat effectiveness and organization, and once they start fighting, they pose little threat.Even after the battle on the frontal battlefield is over, these populations can be reorganized to increase their own war endurance.

This was also one of the reasons why Li Tai and his subordinates dared to plunder the Jihu tribe. As long as they didn't encounter any real stubble, they could run if they couldn't beat them without the burden of heavy logistics.

Because he had already made two-handed preparations, Li Tai also carried a lot of ordnance on this trip.

One bow and one knife are standard equipment, three bowstrings are allocated, and each person carries thirty to fifty arrows.These rations alone are enough to deal with a large-scale field battle.

In addition, there are [-] horse shields, [-] collars of Liangdang armor, [-] armored horses, and [-] horse spears. Although the number is small, it is enough to perform offensive and defensive clutches if armed with armor. tactical coordination.

They didn't bring any luggage such as chariots and horses on this trip. Except for one war horse each was allocated, they only scraped together [-] idle horses to use as replacements and to carry supplies.

The key to maintaining a relatively considerable ordnance is the carrying capacity freed up by the reduction in supplies.In terms of food supplies, each person carried two compressed grain cakes with them. The space occupied was very small, but it was enough to maintain the consumption back and forth.

Horse food such as soybean meal was carried several hundred catties. In late autumn, when walking along the river, there was no shortage of hay and other horse food in the countryside.

In addition to two large iron pots, five felt tents for marching, a whetstone for sharpening knives, and dozens of catties of ointment for maintaining utensils, although the materials carried are quite a lot, they have not yet reached the point where they will affect mobility.

After making the decision, Li Tai also issued this order to the troupes, ordering them to rest well, maintain their physical strength, and slightly adjust the troop organization and equipment allocation.

Li Yantou, Zhu Meng, and Li Dao each led a team of a hundred men, serving as the left and right wings and the vanguard, while Li Tai led the rest of the army to serve as the rear of the Chinese army, transporting armor, rations and other important supplies in a unified manner.The three teams in front are responsible for investigating the terrain and looking for targets, and the Chinese army team is responsible for attacking and defending.

After making this arrangement and allocating troops and supplies, everyone rested early in the temporary camp that night, leaving only a dozen or so scouts to guard the night.

Not long after Li Tai fell asleep, he suddenly heard a warning sound from outside the tent. He quickly grabbed his knife and put on his clothes and walked out of the tent. He looked at the soldiers who had reported before entering and asked, "What's the matter?"

"Suddenly a fire burst out from the north of the east bank..."

Li Tai looked in the direction guided by the soldiers, and sure enough, he saw a fire shining in the night on the other side of the river, but he couldn't see the clear source of the fire, so the distance should not be close.

"Is there any strange noise nearby?"

After observing for a while, he asked again, he just finished planning to engage in Jihu here, but it would be a bit embarrassing if Jihu took out the camp tonight.

The soldier shook his head after hearing the words, and said only: "Li Canjun has led his men to sneak to the north to investigate, please wait for the master in the camp."

Hearing that there was no strange phenomenon nearby, Li Tai breathed a sigh of relief, and did not disturb the trilogy who had already fallen asleep to rest, and only held a knife by himself and a few of his cronies waited in the camp.

More than half an hour passed, and although the fire on the other side hadn't completely disappeared, it also dimmed a lot.

Li Dao returned in a hurry, frowning darkly, with a serious expression on his face: "Master, there is a reed shoal a few miles north, where traces of people and horses have been left behind. It is estimated that there are more than two hundred people left behind, and there are still people and horses on the river beach." The traces left by swimming, the traces left are not like the officers and soldiers, they should be left by thieves and horses, and the time is at most the day before yesterday."

Li Tai frowned when he heard this, pointed to the fainter flames on the other side and said: "If the thief Hu Shiwu just passed through the border, then the flames over there should be attacking and killing households in Wubi, the village."

"It should be. It is normal for the thieves to come and go. It's just that there are still so few things to see, and it's hard to tell which thieves it is."

Li Dao nodded when he heard the words. Seeing that it was getting darker, he said again: "Master, please rest first. It is inconvenient to cross the river tonight. Wait until tomorrow. I will explore first before crossing the river at the back. There are not many guards around , without strong soldiers in the border, these thieves should continue to wander around the border."

Li Tai nodded after hearing the words, and took a bitter look at the direction that had been submerged in the darkness of the night before going back to sleep.

In the morning of the next day, the team used a pontoon bridge and swam across the Luoshui River at the shoal of the Wudu River in Jihubu, and entered Shicheng County from Diaoyin.

The so-called counties in this area are just names.The nearest military defense zone is located in Fushi City dozens of miles away, which is under the jurisdiction of Shangjun.

Shicheng County in this area was destroyed by the Jihu Rebellion in the seventh year of Datong. Now the county government is located in Fucheng County. Apart from recruiting people's resources and materials to participate in the defense of the Yellow River, they have basically given up on the management of its borders. administrative jurisdiction.

Therefore, this area is basically equivalent to an anarchic barren land. Except for some local tyrants who are hard to give up and resettled, the local tyrants are still defending themselves, and the rest of the area is almost entirely the scope of Jihu's activities.

Li Tai led the rear to move forward slowly, and his vision was almost full of wilderness with no human habitation.In terms of landform features alone, Shicheng County is more suitable for farming and animal husbandry than Diaoyin on the west bank of Luoshui River.

Although there are also gully and plateau structures, the plateau blocks are much larger than those on the west bank. Weeds are overgrown in the wilderness.

The Luoshui River bends to the northwest in this area, and the river is turbulent during the spring and summer flood seasons. Since there is no river bend channel for flood discharge, the river often overflows, thus forming a large area of ​​tidal flat depressions.And this area has a very famous name in later generations, called Nanniwan.

The land in this area is considered to be a rare area suitable for farming on the northern Shaanxi plateau, so even though the government and the army have all withdrawn, some villagers still can't bear to leave, and even without the protection of the Western Wei regime, they still live here.

If the Western Wei government can effectively organize and strengthen personnel investment, this territory definitely has the potential to become a strategic place to control the northern Shaanxi Plateau and check and balance the Eastern Wei Dynasty.

It's just that the foundation of the Western Wei Dynasty is too weak, even the core area of ​​Guanzhong has not been fully digested, and there is really no spare capacity to open another line of business, so that the good soil and water can only be reduced to a paradise for raging bullshit.

Li Tai still felt a pity in his heart, Li Dao, who was going to explore the way, had already sent back scouts to report the specific location of a villager who was attacked last night.

After getting the news, Li Tai led the crowd to rush there, traveling eastward for more than ten miles, they arrived at a dock wall in a valley with its back on a platform.

The location of this dock wall is ingenious, with the door facing the valley and the back against a high plateau. Half of the buildings are hollowed out on the plateau and placed under the soil layer, like a cave dwelling that has been enlarged many times.

If you hadn't walked into the valley and reached the front, you would hardly find that there is still a settlement here.It shows how cautious the villagers in this area are in order to avoid being exposed to Jihu's eyes and ears, but they are still not immune to the murderous hands.

At this time, the wall of the dock has become scorched earth and a piece of ashes, and there are still some distorted bones in the ashes, which shows how cruel the death was at that time.

There are still many traces of knives, arrows and chisels on the earthen wall of the dock wall. It should be that the Jihu team failed to break into the dock wall after a fierce battle, so they went up to the platform and set fire to it, and broke through it with the help of fire attack. Dock wall.

Li Tai rode his horse closer, and as the mountain wind blew, a scorching smell rushed towards his face. Looking at the charred black corpses and the ruined walls in the ashes, his shoulders trembled slightly, and he held the knife handle with a heavy voice. Said: "The corpses will not be collected for the time being, and the thin soil will be covered lightly. After killing all those thieves, come to sacrifice them with blood!"

(End of this chapter)