Family Rise: Beginning with Grandfather.

Chapter 571 Crossing Mount Menghe

After the plan was completed, all departments in Chongshan Town immediately began to take action.

Xie Yuan returned to Daning Wei, and while strengthening the vigilance to the west, he mobilized reinforcements to guard the food route of Dinghu Wei.

Yang Mingzhen and Yang Chengze led two battalions of soldiers to leave Dinghu Guard early the next morning. They wanted to attack the banner area of ​​the Ula tribe, so they had to take a long detour.

The remaining army slowly left Dinghu Wei and slowly moved towards the location of Sari Lake and Menghe Mountain Que.

At the beginning, Yang Zhengshan did not lead the Zhenbiao Camp to separate from the six reinforcement camps. They first slowly approached the territory of the Ula clan along the Dinghu Wei's garrison.

The army of tens of thousands was traveling at an extremely slow pace. It took them three days to get out of the jurisdiction of Dinghu Wei and enter the territory of Ula tribe.

Marching forty to fifty miles a day should be a normal level. Yang Zhengshan is not in a hurry. He needs to make sure whether the left and right battalions can destroy the Ula clan's flag territory before he can divide his troops.

If the Ula clan's banner had not been destroyed, it would be very dangerous for the reinforcements to set up camp outside the Menghe Mountain Palace. If they were not careful, they would be attacked from all sides.

While Yang Zhengshan was advancing slowly, Yang Mingzhen and Yang Chengze had already led the left and right battalions to bypass Lake Sari and arrive at the banner area of ​​the Ula clan.

But they did not find any members of the Ula clan, only an empty flag land.

There were a large number of brick and stone houses and felt tents in the vast banner area, but it was empty without a single person or livestock. It was obvious that the Ula family had run away long ago, and took all the supplies with them.

Yang Mingzhen and Yang Chengze came to a house and looked at the mess inside.

"They should have left seven or eight days ago!"

"The Wu La clan has 100,000 members, including the old and the young, women and children. Their speed of travel should be no more than 200 miles in seven or eight days!"

Yang Mingzhen analyzed.

Yang Chengze nodded, "They can't go east, nor south. They either go west into the Menghe Mountains, or go north to the snowy plains!"

Yang Mingzhen thought for a moment and said, "It is unlikely that they will enter Menghe Mountain. They still have a large number of livestock. The vegetation in Menghe Mountain is not enough to support so many livestock. However, the edge of the snowfield can support a lot of livestock."

The snowfield does not have a clear boundary, and any cold place in the north can be called the snowfield.

It is now May, the time when the vegetation on the edge of the snowfield is the most vibrant. In the next six months, the Ula family can live on the edge of the snowfield. If they are well prepared, they can even spend a cold winter in the snowfield.

"Should we give chase?" Yang Chengze asked.

Yang Mingzhen hesitated a little. "The order given to us by the Marquis is to cross the Menghe Mountain directly after attacking the Wula clan. Compared with the Wula clan, it is more important to cross the Menghe Mountain and go deep into the heartland of the Wulianghu tribe!"

"We don't have the exact route that Wu Lashi took to escape. It will probably take a lot of time to chase him now."

"Instead of wasting time on the Ula clan, we should cross the Monhe Mountain as soon as possible!"

Yang Chengze nodded, "That's fine, but I'm afraid the food and fodder we carry won't be enough to support us across the Menghe Mountains!"

Yang Mingzhen said: "Then rob. There are still many small tribes in the south of Sari Lake. There is enough for us to replenish some food and meat!"

Their original plan was to replenish supplies from the Ula clan after attacking them. Now that the Ula clan has run away, they can only rob the small tribes around them.

After the two men agreed, they first sent a team of cavalry back to deliver a message to Yang Zhengshan, and then led the army to sweep towards the south of Sari Lake.

While the Chongshan Town army was on the march, Yang Zhengshan was a little surprised after receiving letters from Yang Mingzhen and Yang Chengze.

"The Ula family actually ran away?"

He didn't know his bad reputation among the Ula clan, so naturally he didn't expect that the Ula clan would escape on their own initiative.

In fact, it is not difficult to understand why the Ula clan escaped. The Ula clan originally defected from the Donghai Hu clan to the Wuliang Hu clan. They were able to betray the Donghai Hu clan at the beginning, so naturally they can betray the Wuliang Hu clan now.

What's more, this time the Wuliang royal court was suspected of using them as cannon fodder, and Xuanting had no psychological burden about betraying the Wuliang royal court.

Yang Zhengshan pondered for a moment, and said to the soldiers who came to deliver the letter: "Go back and tell Mingzhen and Chengze that they can decide what to do. There is no need to ask for instructions!"

He has decided to let Yang Mingzhen and Yang Chengze go. As the saying goes, a general is not subject to orders from his king when he is away from the court. Now the two sides can still communicate, but after they separate and cross the courtyard to Menghe Mountain, the two sides will have no way to contact each other, so everything will be up to them to decide.

As for Ula, since she has run away, there is no need to worry about her. Even if Ula is retreating to advance, Yang Zhengshan can't take care of her now.

It was impossible for him to change his plan for the sake of the Ula clan. Of course, he still warned Tang Feihu and Niu Zhuang to be careful of the Ula clan's possible sneak attack on their camp.

"Tomorrow we will split our forces and march north. You continue to move forward. You don't need to go too fast. Just march normally!"

"After arriving at the designated location, don't rush to attack. First reinforce the camp and send out scouts to completely cut off Menghe Mountain Que's connection with the outside world!"

"The Ula clan should have escaped, but we must also be on guard against them using retreat as a means of advancing. In short, you must be careful in dealing with them!"

"If it is impossible, return to Dinghuwei immediately and don't worry about us!"

Yang Zhengshan summoned Tang Feihu and Niu Zhuang and gave them detailed instructions.

After listening to this, the two responded, "Don't worry, Lord. We will act cautiously."

After arranging everything, Yang Zhengshan led the three battalions of the town flag, front, middle and rear, to march north early the next morning.

At this time, every soldier in the front, middle and rear camps rode two horses, even the heavy armored cavalry rode three horses, and the heavy infantry also rode three horses.

The three battalions have a total of 18,000 combat soldiers, but there are also 6,000 auxiliary soldiers, which means a total of 24,000 people.

They also brought more than 60,000 war horses.

They only carried ten days' worth of food and fodder, which was not enough for them to reach Yemi City. However, they could only carry this much food and fodder at most. If they carried more, it would affect the speed of the march.

As for what to do after the food and grass are exhausted, Yang Zhengshan has already thought about it. If he encounters a small tribe along the way, he will rob them. If he does not encounter a small tribe, he will kill the horses and eat the meat.

Of the 60,000 war horses, only half would be enough to be left; they could easily kill 30,000 of them as food and fodder.

Just as Yang Zhengshan led his army to bypass the north of Mount Menghe, Tang Wuxi also arrived at Dongque Pass.

Inside Dongque Pass, Tang Wuxi received the news that Ula had escaped, and his face turned red with anger.

"This bunch of ungrateful bastards actually ran away at the critical moment!"

"A bunch of damn bastards!"

Tang Wuxi cursed for a quarter of an hour before he stopped. "When I defeat the army of Chongshan Town, I will make the Wu La family pay!"

He has no way to deal with Ula now. Ula has already run away, and he can't send people to chase her back.

Let’s not talk about whether he can catch up with them. Even if he does, Wu La probably won’t come back, and might even kill his people. “Where is the army of Chongshan Town?”

After his anger subsided a little, he asked the generals under his command.

"They are still in the southeast of Lake Sari. It is expected that they will arrive at Lake Sari in five days and enter the outside of Dongque Pass in eight days!" said a general.

Dongque Pass is located in the east of Menghe Mountain Que, more than ten miles away from the entrance of Menghe Mountain Que. Standing on the city wall of Dongque Pass, you can overlook the entire entrance of Menghe Mountain Que.

The camping location chosen by Yang Zhengshan for Tang Feihu was at the entrance of the mountain gate.

They will block the entrance to the mountain gate, making it impossible for the Chici tribe inside the mountain gate to leave. At that time, the main camp will only need to face the enemy from one side.

The Chici tribe wanted to use the Dongque Pass to block the army of Chongshan Town, and the army of Chongshan Town also wanted to block the exit of Shanque Pass to prevent the Chici tribe from getting any news from the east of Menghe Mountain.

Tang Wuxi naturally didn't know what Yang Zhengshan was thinking at this time. He just ordered: "Hurry up and prepare for battle. Cut down all the trees outside the city as soon as possible!"

In order to prevent the army of Chongshan Town from building siege equipment, they cut down all the trees outside the city. Now the mountains outside Dongque Pass have become bare.

The tall trees have been basically cut down, and only some shrubs and weeds remain.

Tang Feihu and Niu Zhuang followed Yang Zhengshan's instructions and marched slowly. When they arrived at the entrance of the mountain gate, it was ten days later, two days later than Tang Wuxi expected.

When they arrived at the entrance of the mountain gate, they followed Yang Zhengshan's orders to send out scouts and then began to set up camp.

After all the trees around were cut down, they went to cut down trees farther away and slowly reinforced the camp.

Tang Feihu and Yang Mingzhi came to the entrance of the mountain gate and looked at Dongque Pass with a telescope.

The two of them observed carefully, and then fell silent. After a long while, Tang Feihu said, "Hey, no wonder the Marquis didn't let us attack. We can't take it down at all!"

Yang Mingzhi also looked depressed, as the Dongque Pass was too dangerous.

The city wall of Dongque Pass is not very high, only about two meters high, but there are steep mountains on both sides of Dongque Pass, and there are many forts on the hillsides on both sides. From those forts, stones can be thrown directly to attack the valley below.

If you want to attack Dongque Pass, you must first capture those forts, otherwise you will be attacked from three sides when you siege the city.

The locations of those forts were extremely steep. It would take a lot of effort for ordinary soldiers to climb up, let alone attack.

"Forget it, let's just stay here honestly!" Yang Mingzhi said helplessly.

After being criticized by Yang Zhengshan, he had given up the idea of ​​​​competing for credit.

The two men observed for a while, then returned to the camp and began to reinforce it.

They first built a wall on the west side of the camp and also built a gate, which made it look like this was the front of the camp, but in fact they dug three trenches behind the wall, which could be used as a gate. There was a floating bridge over the trench, and soldiers would go out of the camp every day to observe the situation at Dongque Pass.

Their camp was built very large, stretching over ten miles, and could easily accommodate hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

But in fact, there were only 20,000 soldiers and 20,000 civilians in the camp. The other 10,000 soldiers were guarding the grain road and were not in the camp at all.

The camp was busy every day, with a large number of scouts patrolling outside, a large number of soldiers patrolling in the tents, and a large number of civilians cutting down trees in the distant mountains and forests to build siege equipment.

It looks like they are preparing to attack the city.

When Tang Wuxi saw this, he sneered in his heart. He was not afraid of the Chongshan Town army building siege equipment. He was not in a hurry anyway. The longer the time dragged on, the better it would be for him.

As for siege, he had no worries because he could completely abandon Dongque Pass.

Behind Dongque Pass is Zhongque Pass. One Que Pass can block Chongshan Town for two or three months, and two Que Passes can block it for half a year.

Half a year later, winter will come, and heavy snow will cover the entire Menghe Mountain, and the army of Chongshan Town will definitely not be able to attack.

What's more, the time has dragged on for so long that the army of Chongshan Town has consumed a lot of food and fodder, which is extremely disadvantageous to Chongshan Town.

Therefore, he was not afraid at all that the Chongshan Town army would delay time. The longer the Chongshan Town army delayed, the happier he would be.

Not to mention Tang Wuxi's relaxed mood, it took Yang Mingzhen and Yang Chengze eleven days for them to lead the left and right battalions and finally cross Mount Menghe and arrive at the west side of Mount Menghe.

The journey was extremely difficult. The road they walked on could not be called a road at all. Most of the places they walked on were hillsides, and many of the hillsides were so steep that they could barely be walked on.

Along the way, they lost more than 300 soldiers, most of whom fell off the cliff and died, while a small number of them were injured on the way and had to stay where they were for the time being to recuperate.

In order to protect the injured soldiers, they had to leave more than 200 soldiers to take care of them.

These are just the soldiers, they lost even more horses.

Thousands of war horses rolled down the cliff, and thousands more were injured and thrown into the mountains.

After this journey, the soldiers were exhausted both physically and mentally.

However, when they stood halfway up the hill and looked at the endless grassland in the west, they all felt excited again.

"Damn it, we finally made it out. I couldn't see the exit anymore and I thought we were lost in the mountains!"

Yang Mingzhen scolded with a smile.

He has been under a lot of psychological pressure these days. He is surrounded by towering mountains and is in an abyss with no end in sight and no way out.

Yang Chengze let out a long breath and then smiled brightly.

"Now it's our turn to show our skills!"

Yang Mingzhen also laughed, and his laugh was particularly ferocious.

After suffering such a terrible crime, they have finally come out of it and it’s time to release the anger that they have been holding in their hearts.

Moreover, they had little dry food left. Not only did they need to vent their frustration, they also needed to plunder the supplies of those tribes.

"Pass the order, rest for one night and leave the mountain tomorrow!"

Yang Mingzhen shouted loudly.

The soldiers were looking for places to rest on the hillside, and many of them were cooking.

They didn't carry many iron pots, which were definitely not enough for cooking. They could barely boil some water to replenish the drinking water in the soldiers' water bags.

There is actually no shortage of water in the mountains. The snow on the top of the mountain is melting, forming many small rivers and streams in the mountains. They often walk along the rivers and streams.

(End of this chapter)