I rode and slashed unparalleled in the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 950: Killing Through Liupan Mountain (Combined Chapter 5K5)

"Are all the people on the other side of the mountain Qiang people?"

At the Jingyang County Court, Su Yao pinched his chin and asked the county magistrate:
"Please tell me the details of the situation first."

The county magistrate swallowed his saliva and said in a trembling voice: "Your Highness, since the Han Dynasty moved the Qiang people to guard the border in Hexi, there have been countless tribes of all sizes living in Liangzhou."

"Among them, the Qiang people in Anding and Beidi are close to Guanzhong and Bingzhou. They have seen your might during the Xiongnu Rebellion and have been relatively obedient in the past two years."

"But the Qiang people entrenched in Longxi, Jincheng and Wuwei are completely different!"

"In the past hundred years, they have rebelled frequently, causing unrest in the Hexi Corridor. The area west of Xiaoguan Road and even the entire Liupan Mountains has long been reduced to a place where Qiang and Hu people graze their horses."

"A few months ago, some merchants from Guanzhong thought that the world was peaceful and wanted to take a shortcut through the Xiaoguan Road to Jincheng, traveling in groups. As a result."

"What's the result?" Xu Huang asked in a deep voice.

The county magistrate rested his forehead on the ground and said bitterly, "There were more than 300 people in the whole team, but only three escaped, and all of them had their ears cut off!"

"They said that the valleys along the way were full of Qiang tribes and there was no way to go!"

Zhao Yun heard this and slammed his spear to the ground: "The Qiang bandits are hateful! Han Sui deserves death!"

As soon as Zhao Yun finished speaking, all the soldiers present were immediately excited and shouted for fighting and killing.

Obviously, no one had expected that just a few months ago when everyone thought the world had been at peace, such a tragic scene was actually being played out in Liangzhou.

The Qiang people were so cruel, obviously because of Han Sui's connivance.

Su Yao's eyes also flashed with a hint of coldness, but he was not in a hurry. He raised his hand to stop him and turned his gaze to the county magistrate: "What's the situation in Xiaoguan?"

"This..." The county magistrate hesitated for a moment, "After the caravan tragedy, I sent scouts to investigate. Although the city gate is still there, it has been in disrepair for a long time and is in the hands of the Qiang bandits. I am afraid that your army will be able to pass through."

"It doesn't matter."

Su Yao drank the wine in one gulp, stood up and said:

"Order the entire army to prepare meals at 5 a.m. tomorrow. Each person must bring 10 days' worth of dry food. Also recruit local guides, and offer a large reward to those who are familiar with the Xiaoguan Road!"

That night, Jingyang County Government Office.

"King Tang, this man is the hunter who is most familiar with Xiaoguan Road in the county."

The county magistrate led an old man with a frosted face into the room. When the old man saw Su Yao, he wanted to kneel down, but was held back.

"Don't be so polite, old man."

Su Yao personally poured a bowl of wine and handed it over: "Do you know how many Qiang tribes there are on the Xiaoguan Road now?"

The old man took the wine bowl with trembling hands, and a hint of surprise flashed in his cloudy eyes: "General, do you really want to pass Xiaoguan?"

"Of course." Su Yao nodded.

The old man raised his head and drank it all, then wiped his beard and said, "Okay! I will accompany the general on this trip!"

He dipped his finger into the wine and drew a line on the table:

"From here, go northwest for thirty miles into the mountains, go up along the tributary of the Jing River, and after passing three passes, you will reach Xiaoguan. There are seven Qiang villages of different sizes along the way. The most dangerous place is Jitou Road, where one man can guard the pass."

Su Yao listened attentively and suddenly interrupted: "Are there any Han people in these Qiang villages?"

"Yes, there are quite a few." The old man's expression darkened and he sighed, "Most of them are the people who were captured in recent years, and they are here to herd and farm for them."

"very good."

Su Yao's eyes gleamed, and he turned to Zhao Yun and said:

"Pass the order down. Tomorrow we will change into Qiang clothes and disguise ourselves as a merchant caravan. Select a hundred soldiers who can speak Qiang to lead the charge."

At dawn the next day, a strange "caravan" quietly left Jingyang.

There were no more than 500 people in this team, but there was a long line of mules, horses and vehicles of all sizes. In addition to those loaded with goods, there were also dozens of "slaves" with their hands tied - in fact, they were elite soldiers in disguise.

Su Yao personally put on a sheepskin coat, hid the Mo Dao in the cargo, and pretended to be the leader of the caravan, while his other elite troops quietly followed the caravan from a distance.

The autumn colors of the Liupan Mountains are already deep, and a thin mist lingers in the mountains.

"The first Qiang village is just ahead."

The guide, the old hunter, lowered his voice and said, "The one guarding the camp is a small leader of the Shaodang Qiang. He is greedy for money and loves wine. If you can cater to his tastes, it shouldn't be difficult to deal with him."

Su Yao nodded slightly, signaling the team to cheer up.

Soon, a wooden village gate appeared at the corner of the mountain road. Several Qiang soldiers with their hair loose and their clothes on the left were lazily leaning against the gate. When they saw the caravan, their eyes suddenly lit up.

"Stop! Where did you come from?"

The leading Qiang soldier spoke stiff Chinese and pointed his spear directly at Su Yao's chest.

"Sir, we are a caravan under the command of General Jincheng Han." Su Yao spoke in fluent Qiang language.

"General Han?"

The Qiang soldier captain was obviously not a good-for-nothing, and he immediately asked back:

"When did General Han's caravan pass by here? You might be spies!"

As soon as the Qiang soldiers' captain finished speaking, all the Qiang soldiers in front of the camp were ready for battle.

Su Yao said calmly:

"Oh, do you think we like to take this Xiaoguan Road?"

"It's because there's a war going on at Longguan Road. We can't leave at all."

As he spoke, Su Yao took out a bag of coins from his pocket and handed it over:
"We know that you have worked hard to guard the village, so we specially brought some treasures from the Central Plains to present to the leaders."

The Qiang soldier weighed his money bag, grinned and showed his yellow teeth: "Wait!" Then he turned and ran into the village.

A moment later, a drunken burly man came out with a machete on his waist:

"The person Han Wen made an appointment with? Do you have any proof?"

Su Yao was prepared and took out a forged token and letter: "This is a handwritten letter from General Han."

The leader squinted his eyes and looked at it for a long time but couldn't figure out what it meant. After all, he couldn't read.

This guy pretended for a while, his mind was no longer on the token, because his eyes just glanced at Su Yao's team and were firmly attracted:
"You have such a high-quality Hu Ji here?"

As he spoke, his evil claws reached out to the "female slaves" in the team:
"This young lady is great. She should stay and warm my bed!"

Alyssa, the Hu Ji sister disguised as a female slave, had a cold light in her eyes and subconsciously wanted to resist, but Su Yao held her shoulders and pulled her behind him:

"It's her good fortune that the leader likes her, but this beauty is top-notch, a famous Hu Ji in the capital, and she was specifically requested by General Han. We spent a lot of money to get her."

When the leader heard that it was General Han again, he suddenly stopped moving, his face flushed and looked a little ugly, but he still stiffened his neck and hummed:

"So what about Han Wenyue? He is still my king's lackey. If it weren't for the fact that we Qiang people don't like those trivial matters of literary flourishing, he wouldn't have the right to speak in Liangzhou."

"That's right, Chief." Su Yao apologized with a smile and handed over a heavy bag of silver. "But General Han said that this batch of goods is related to the alliance with the countries in the Western Regions. If something goes wrong..."

The Qiang leader weighed his money bag and suddenly grabbed Su Yao by the collar: "Are you threatening me?"

"I dare not." Su Yao waved his hands repeatedly and lowered his voice. "I just heard that the Han army has arrived in Tianshui. General Han urgently needs this batch of goods to contact the Western Regions for reinforcements. If the leader is willing to help, after repelling the Han army, the Hexi ranch promised by General Han will be given to you..."

The Qiang leader's eyes flashed with greed, and he let go of Su Yao: "This is not bad. But——"

He pointed at Alyssa with a lewd smile and said, “This little girl has to stay in the village for one night no matter what, and leave tomorrow!”

Su Yao pretended to be embarrassed, but finally nodded helplessly: "Then... follow the leader's wishes."

"Hmph, you're smart, kid." He immediately turned around and shouted at the guard, "Quick, open the door and let them in!"

Soon, Su Yao's caravan entered the village.

Although the leader said that he wanted Alyssa to stay overnight, it was obvious that he could not really wait until the evening to enjoy such a beauty.

So, as soon as the caravan entered the village and before they settled down, he came to Su Yao to ask for people, ready to have a great day and night.

For this purpose, he had just specially asked his men to prepare a large pot of nourishing and aphrodisiac soup.

Seeing that the leader was so anxious, Su Yao turned back quietly without making any expression.

After seeing that the gate of the village behind him was locked, Su Yao immediately stopped playing tricks and attacked. In the blink of an eye, he raised his hand and grabbed the leader's throat and lifted him up high.

"you?!"

The Qiang leader was caught off guard and was pinched by Su Yao's iron-like hands until his face turned purple. He struggled desperately, but saw that the seemingly weak "merchant" in front of him had a cold light in his eyes. Where was the flattery?
"You... you are not..." The Qiang leader squeezed out a few words from between his teeth, and reached desperately for the scimitar at his waist with his right hand.

But of course it was too late.

As Su Yao snorted coldly, the Qiang leader's throat also made a crisp "crack" sound.

There was no last words, no begging for mercy, and no time to resist.

The leader of the Qiang village, who had been so arrogant and daring just now, died after kicking his legs twice madly.

"what?!"

"Boss!!!"

"You bastard!" The scene of Su Yao strangling the leader of the Qiang village to death in public shocked everyone in the village.

Dozens of Qiang soldiers who were nearby immediately picked up their weapons and swarmed over.

"Do it-"

In fact, Su Yao didn't need to give the order. The next moment after he took action, the elite imperial guards disguised as caravan guards also responded instantly.

The weapons hidden in the cargo flashed and were unsheathed, and the bound "slaves" broke free from their ropes. In the blink of an eye, the caravan that had just been timid and lazy had turned into a murderous elite army.

"Revenge for the leader!"

"kill!"

Dozens of Qiang soldiers rushed forward, wanting to capture these intruders with their bravery and avenge their leader.

But with their limited abilities, they couldn't even get close to Su Yao.

Zhao Yun's silver spear flashed, and it shot out like a dragon, leaving bloody holes on the bodies of the leading Qiang soldiers. Xu Huang even swung his axe and attacked the crowd with great force.

"Leave no one behind!"

Su Yao threw away the dead Qiang leader in his hand, pulled out a Mo Dao from the carriage, turned around and joined the battle. Immediately, a bloody storm broke out in the Qiang village.

This sudden fight only lasted for half a quarter of an hour. When the last stubborn Qiang soldier was cut in half by Su Yao, the entire village was under the control of the Han army.

All the Qiang soldiers were wiped out.

They didn't expect that the gate of the village that they closed with their own hands would turn the village into their own grave.

Although a few people tried to escape when they saw the situation was not right, they finally jumped off the wall despite being injured and wanted to report the news to other camps in the back mountain.

But when they saw the iron cavalry emerging from the fog, everyone knelt on the ground in despair.

"Count the casualties and clean up the battlefield."

In the mountain stronghold, Su Yao wiped the blood off the knife and gave orders in a deep voice.

"General, our army suffered 24 minor injuries, 1 serious injury, and no one was killed." Zhao Yun quickly reported, "In total, more than 400 heads were beheaded, and more than 100 Qiang women and children were captured, as well as nearly 200 slaves."

Su Yao nodded slightly and glanced at the captives with dazed eyes in the corner.

What the old hunter said was indeed true. There were still quite a number of Han slaves in the village, both male and female. At this moment, they were all kneeling on the ground trembling in fear, not daring to look up.

"Send an order, open the shackles immediately and free all the Han slaves." Su Yao paused, then added, "Tell them that those who are willing to join the army will be taken as auxiliary soldiers and rewarded according to their merits after the war; those who want to go home are also fine, we will give each of them some money for travel expenses, and they can leave on their own after the war."

Soon, more than seventy ragged Han slaves were brought to Su Yao.

Among them were both men and women, most of them were young and middle-aged, all of them were pale and thin, but there was a glimmer of hope in their eyes.

"General, you are so kind and virtuous. I am willing to follow you until death!" A man with scars on his face knelt down and kowtowed three times.

"So does the villain!"

"My family has been killed by the Qiang people. I have no one to turn to and I beg the general to take me in!"

In a short time, nearly half of the slaves expressed their willingness to join the army.

Su Yao thought for a moment and selected twenty men who were relatively strong and smart to join the scout team. The rest were temporarily responsible for guarding the prisoners, transporting supplies, and helping with some miscellaneous matters.

"General, what should we do with these Qiang women and children?" Xu Huang asked, pointing at another group of shivering captives.

Su Yao narrowed his eyes.

According to the Han army's practice, all these defeated prisoners of war were naturally confiscated and enslaved. The men were taken back to be worked until they died under the supervision of the government, while the women were either made into camp prostitutes or official prostitutes, or forced to cook and wash clothes, or directly taken to the market and sold.

According to the past practice of Su Yao's army, although the treatment of these prisoners of war would be better, it was not much different. The main reason was that he banned camp prostitutes, and most of these women and children were gathered together and used to reward meritorious soldiers.

This naturally had a good motivating effect on Su Yao's army, which used to be mostly bachelors.

But now, as his troops sweep across the country, the world is gradually becoming stable, and his army is no longer composed of bachelors who could only make ends meet and had difficulty starting a family.

These elite imperial guards settled down in and around Luoyang, owning land and fields. Everyone found a wife, and some of those with considerable wealth even took concubines.

For them, using ordinary barbarian women to inspire them seems to be ineffective and unnecessary.

However, women are always a scarce resource in this era, especially in troubled times when a large number of women died. Among the vast number of refugees in various places, the ratio of men to women is often above 10:1.

In troubled times, these men worked hard with their own hands to survive and had no time to care about women's problems.

When peace returns to the world, those bachelors will become factors of social instability. Moreover, the country needs to restore its population and economy, and the number of women of childbearing age will become an absolute factor restricting population growth.

So Su Yao ordered: "Keep them together in this village for now, and deal with them all after the war."

After dealing with the prisoners, Su Yao immediately ordered the army to attack.

They changed into clean clothes in the village, washed off the blood stains on their bodies, and took some "real slaves" with them. They followed the same method and broke through four Qiang villages on the mountain road in one day, rescuing nearly a thousand Han slaves.

So much so that when they entered Jitou Road the next day, the village chief and others in charge of the road did not react at all.

However, this time, it was impossible to earn money into the village like before.

The reason was simple. After a day of killing, the bloody smell on Su Yao and the others could not be washed away.
"No, those people are wrong!"

The team leader who was about to turn back to the village to report to the leader suddenly stopped, twitched his nose a few times, and took a deep breath:

"There's a bloody smell, and the look in those people's eyes, their hands, and their gestures. How can they be like businessmen?"

The team leader turned around quickly, his face suddenly changed and he shouted: "Quickly close the gate and notify everyone to be on alert!"

Su Yao stood at the door and saw the Qiang soldiers in front of him changing from yellow to red, and they were still hurriedly closing the door. He also made a prompt decision:
"kill!"

"Die, you bastard!"

Only a flash of cold light was seen.

Su Yao drew out the Mo Dao hidden in the car and swept across. The three Qiang soldiers in front of the door suddenly burst into a cloud of blood.

"Stop them! Stop them now!"

The Qiang soldier captain who rushed back was frightened when he saw this, and retreated in panic, screaming. As a result, Zhao Yun, who had emerged from the crowd, pounced on him and stabbed him in the throat with a spear.

Immediately afterwards, Xu Huang also swung his axe and smashed the gate of the village. The Han army immediately rushed forward to fight for the gate.

However, the Qiang soldiers in Jitouzhai were obviously more brave and courageous than the previous ones. They occupied the high ground and shot arrows like rain. Because the imperial guards were accompanying the caravan and lacked strict protection, many of them fell in a pool of blood.

Seeing casualties continuing to occur, Su Yao shouted loudly, straightened his body and leaped up onto the wall of the village to start killing people.

The Qiang archers, who originally thought they could shoot calmly from a high position, had never seen such a master before and were immediately frightened out of their wits.

Su Yao swung his Mo Dao and swept across the wall of the village, turning the situation around single-handedly. Wherever his blade passed, the Qiang soldiers fell down like wheat being cut. The wall of the village was suddenly covered with blood and screams were heard everywhere.

"The general is mighty!"

"Come on!"

"Kill!"

Upon seeing this, Xu Huang shouted loudly, and took the opportunity to lead his men to hack and ram the gate of the village, completely opening it. The Han army poured in like a tide, and the Han cavalry who were ambushing behind them also quickly joined the battlefield, relaying the charge of their comrades.

Although these Han cavalry were not heavily armored, they had good armor and sophisticated weapons. Their combat effectiveness was much higher than that of their teammates who only wore armor under their cloth clothes and carried portable swords.

Their joining immediately accelerated the progress of the battle. In the face of such absolute strength, although Jitou Village was steep, it was still no match for the might of the Han army and was completely defeated in less than an hour.

The undulating, winding and rugged paths in Jitou Village were littered with the corpses of Qiang soldiers.

"Strange, why doesn't such an important village have a decent leader?"

Xu Huang was just wondering when he saw a scout coming in hurriedly to report:
"Report - the general has discovered a secret passage in the back mountain. Please bring your troops to clear it out immediately!"

Jitou Village is indeed a strategic point in Liupan Mountain. There is a secret path behind the village leading directly to the top of the mountain.

When Xu Huang led his men to charge all the way and personally climbed to the commanding heights, he saw Su Yao already standing there, gazing into the distance.

Xu Huang looked in the direction he was looking, and saw about a hundred people escorting an old man in fancy clothes as they hastily fled northward along the mountain road.

"Shao Dang Qiang King! That's Shao Dang Qiang King!" the old hunter shouted excitedly.

Su Yao's eyes flashed, and he reached out to take a longbow from the soldier beside him. Without even aiming, he drew the bow and shot.

As the bowstring vibrated, a sharp arrow flew through the air and hit the old man in the back. The Qiang King screamed and lost his balance, falling directly off the cliff, taking with him a loyal subordinate who wanted to save his master.

Such a scene caused the rest of the crowd to fall into chaos.

"Kill! Leave no one behind!"

Following Su Yao's order, the Han army rushed down the mountain like a tiger. The Qiang soldiers who lost their leader were quickly slaughtered, and the wolf-head banner that symbolized the supreme power of the Shaodang Qiang tribe was also chopped off by Xu Huang's axe.

When the sun set, all seven villages in Liupan Mountain had changed hands.

Su Yao stood on the highest beacon tower, looking at the faintly visible Yellow River in the north with a cold gaze.

Zhao Yun stood by and said:
"The general is fast!"

"I'm afraid Han Wenyue never imagined in his dreams that his Qiang allies here are completely destroyed."

(End of this chapter)