Start practicing archery

Chapter 109 Sun Xiangzong

"drive!"

Chen Sanshi rode Qianxun forward.

When he arrived in the middle of the crowd, he discovered something unusual ahead.

The people seemed to have encountered a flood and a beast. The originally orderly team scattered in a hurry and almost became uncontrollable.

"What's going on? There's no way the barbarians can get around to the front so quickly!"

Chen Sanshi quickened his pace and clearly saw that the flags being held were all flags of the Great Sheng Dynasty. On the flags, the words "Jing Fuhu, General of Youzhou" were clearly written.

"Where did you come from as a deserter?!"

The young general who had whipped and killed several civilians came forward and said, "I see you are still a general in the armor you are wearing! Yunzhou is in danger, how can you be a deserter!"

"?"

Chen Sanshi didn't even have time to speak.

"If we don't kill you deserters, it will be difficult for us to establish the prestige of our army!"

As the young general spoke, he raised the spear in his hand and was about to take action when he was stopped by someone.

"stop!"

Another dark horse general came slowly, holding a Green Dragon Crescent Blade, and on both sides followed many generals in full armor. They were all young, only about twenty-five or twenty-six at most.

"Sir!"

Yin Hanwen was extremely respectful to the visitor: "This man is a deserter, shouldn't he be executed?"

"First find out the situation in Yunzhou."

Cao Fan narrowed his eyes and asked, "Where are you from?"

"The Poyang Thousand Households Unit of the Anding Prefecture's Frontier Guard, and the Commandant Chen Sanshi."

Chen Sanshi introduced himself.

"Are you the Chen Sanshi?"

Cao Fan was slightly surprised.

The people behind him looked at each other, obviously they had all heard of this name.

"It was you who captured that idiot from the Yuwen family alive?"

Yin Hanwen said with great interest: "The battle report said that you were surrounded by thousands of cavalry. How did you do that when you are only at the Bone Refining Realm?"

"It was just a fluke."

Chen Sanshi could feel the contempt in the words, and he secretly took note in his heart that this was not the time to worry about it. The most important thing was to resolve the issue of the pursuers first.

But the other party didn't give it at all

"I knew it. It's unnecessary to ask you."

Yin Hanwen sneered, "You must have captured him when he was alone, right? The battle report was deliberately exaggerated by the local officials for you. The ninth son of the Yuwen family is a well-known coward. It's not surprising to capture him. His Majesty even praised you in person."

"Why are you running away?"

Cao Fan asked in a deep voice: "As far as I know, Yunzhou is in a state of emergency. You just received the imperial edict and were awarded a reward not long ago. Shouldn't you defend the city to the death? Why did you abandon the city and run here? After passing Huanwen County, you are almost in Youzhou territory."

"I……"

Chen Sanshi felt annoyed.

He could see that this group of people were probably children of high-ranking officials, so it was normal for them to be arrogant. Why didn't they even give him a chance to speak?

"He is not a defeated soldier, nor a deserter!"

A cold voice sounded.

"Ms. Sun?"

Cao Fan greeted him familiarly: "Why didn't I see you in Liangzhou? They only said that you went to Yunzhou with Brother Buqi to be elected as a vanguard officer. I didn't expect that you went to a small county town. What was the name of the county?"

"Sir."

Sun Li, with a pale face, rode his warhorse to his junior brother and said, "How can you be so indiscriminate as to say that Sanshi is a deserter? Do you know that if it weren't for him, my brother and I, as well as tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians, would have died at the hands of the barbarians?"

"That's right!"

Sun Buqi also rushed over and recounted the story of the Battle of Poyang, in which more than a thousand remnant soldiers defeated six thousand barbarians.

"Sun Buqi, are you bragging?"

Yin Hanwen didn't believe it: "He is training his bones, killing barbarians to train his organs?"

"He has the body of nine dragons, no worse than any of you!"

Sun Buqi said unhappily: "Be more polite."

"Even if what you say is true."

Yin Hanwen said: "Didn't they abandon the city in the end?"

"That's for a special reason!"

"Brother Buqi, why are you protecting him so much? You are being partial! Abandoning the city without permission is a serious crime!"

"Mr. Yin, do you want to be beaten?"

"Brother Buqi, who can you beat?"

"..."

"Okay, stop arguing."

Cao Fan clasped his fists towards the young man and said, "Could you please tell me the specific situation in Yunzhou ahead?"

Chen Sanshi had to put the overall situation first: "Fifty miles to the rear, there are three thousand barbarian cavalry, and there are also twenty thousand barbarian bandits in the southwest. According to the information sent by my spies, it seems that the highest-ranking one is the commander of the refining internal organs, and there is also a master of the Wushen Cult who is good at opening meridians."

"That's not what I asked."

Cao Fan shook his head slightly: "Don't worry about the pursuers here. Not far ahead, Huanwen County has already dispatched more than 30,000 defenders, and there is also the Hongze River as a natural barrier. It is impossible for them to get through.

"What I want to ask Brother Chen is the distribution of the barbarian bandits' forces and the specific battle situation in Yunzhou, especially in the three prefectures of Anding, Taining, and Lingfeng."

"I come!"

Sun Buqi took over the conversation and told them everything he knew.

"Oh?"

Cao Fan waved his hand, and two people immediately spread out the map in front of him: "So, the current situation is that the three prefectures are still there, which makes it easy! Next, we only need to divide our troops into 30,000 to Anding Prefecture and 20,000 to Taining Prefecture. As long as these two prefectures are relieved, Lingfeng Prefecture will naturally be saved. Then we can cooperate with the main forces of the three northwestern prefectures to recapture the entire Yunzhou."

"Great."

Yin Hanwen showed a happy expression: "Prince, let's go and report to General Jing and ask him to allocate some troops to us for command. The selection of vanguards has not officially started yet, and we must make great contributions."

"Ah."

Cao Fan nodded and gestured to put away the map: "Brother Chen, since we have met, come with us. General Jing will assign troops to you according to your realm, so don't miss this good opportunity to make military achievements."

"This prince."

Chen Sanshi pointed his spear behind him and said, "The most urgent task is to reorganize the troops and get rid of the pursuers behind us."

"Hiss, Brother Chen, didn't you understand what I meant?"

Cao Fan raised his eyebrows and said, "Didn't I just say that Huanwen County is behind us? If we take the official road from the north, we won't have to encounter any barbarians. We can go straight to Anding Prefecture, which is much faster than the route they are taking now.

"We will wait until we get to the vicinity of Anding Prefecture in advance, and then find a place with dangerous terrain. If they dare to come back to help, they will be dead.

“This is to surround the point and attack the reinforcements.

"If they don't come back to help, then it's even better. The siege of Anding Prefecture can be broken in a snap, and these people can only retreat to Anding Prefecture and wait for death."

"Sir, there's no need to waste time talking to him."

Yin Hanwen said disdainfully: "He comes from a small county town, how can he understand the 'big picture'?"

"I know everything you said."

Chen Sanshi made a final effort: "But if we don't repel the pursuing troops first, what will happen to the tens of thousands of people who have fled all the way from Poyang County? Won't they all be slaughtered?"

"People?"

Cao Fan was extremely surprised: "What common people?" "Sir, he probably means these untouchables."

Yin Hanwen said with disgust: "Shouldn't they stay in their own city and defend their own city? Why run away? If they go to other places, won't it be a waste of local food? They deserve to be killed, all of them!"

"Oh, I mean these people."

Cao Fan looked at the dusty poor people nearby and suddenly realized: "That's right, they are also ordinary people. Send someone to ask Huanwen County to send more ferries. As for how many of them can cross the river, the overall situation is more important and we can't worry about it!

"If you say one more word, you may miss the opportunity.

"Miss Sun, Brother Buqi, and this... Brother Chen, right? We have to report to General Jing and set off immediately. If you don't want to come with us, you should hurry across the river by yourself. We still have time.

"Farewell!"

After saying a few words, he led a few people around him and hurried towards the central army.

"Sir!"

Sun Li couldn't stop him even if he wanted to.

The 50,000-strong army moved quickly.

Under the gaze of tens of thousands of people, they completely ignored them and went straight to the northernmost official road. Within an hour, they all disappeared at the end of the sight, leaving only dust in the sky.

When the dust settles, it will be as if it had never been there.

The people looked as pale as death!

"Sir, this...what should we do?"

Xu Wencai witnessed the whole process and stamped his feet anxiously: "How could they not leave even a single soldier behind? What should we do?"

Chen Sanshi looked quietly in the direction where the army disappeared and listened to the panicked voices of the people.

He had a blank expression on his face: "How long will it take to cross the river at the earliest?"

Xu Wencai blurted out: "One day."

"Then we'll just put it off for another day."

"Can't hold on."

Xu Wencai said confidently: "This is a plain. When the cavalry rushes out of the mountains, we will have no choice but to fight head-on. The result will be that they will be crushed in an instant. We won't be able to hold out for even three hours."

"Who said I should wait for them to chase me out?"

Chen Sanshi raised his spear and spoke word by word: "Pass my order! All troops, counterattack!"

……

There are several small rural villages on the east bank of the Hongze River.

However, when they heard that the barbarians had entered the country, they fled early and took refuge as refugees in Huanwen County on the other side of the river.

Under an old willow tree, there is a stone chessboard left behind by the villagers.

In the empty village, there were actually two people playing chess.

A man who looked to be about fifty years old, with a fair face and no beard, wearing a blue robe, and looked like an elegant scholar.

But his legs were broken and he sat in a wooden wheelchair.

opposite.

There was an old man in coarse linen clothes sitting on a stone, with silver hair clipped in black and a goatee beard. He was holding a black piece in his hand, hesitating for a long time without making a move, which aroused the dissatisfaction of the middle-aged Confucian scholar.

"Master, please hurry up."

"What are you in a hurry for?"

The old man said angrily, "Are you still going to get off?"

The middle-aged scholar immediately shut up.

After a long while, he asked cautiously, "Master, you really don't care about Poyang? My fellow apprentices are all there."

"Where can we find extra troops to transfer there?"

The old man frowned, calmly moved a white chess piece, and then occupied it with a black chess piece. Finally, he said with satisfaction: "Okay, it's your turn."

The middle-aged scholar barely thought about it before dropping a move and continued, "Master, what I mean is that you should go alone and bring back your junior brothers and sisters. It will be fine after all."

"I'm leaving? Okay, you go fight the Witch God Cult Leader?"

The old man was in distress again, undecided: "As for the useless girl He, if anything unexpected happens, it's just a good opportunity to settle the accounts accumulated over the years with that person, and there's no need to live such a cowardly life anymore."

"Master."

The middle-aged scholar's eyes flashed with reluctance: "Junior brothers and sisters, after all..."

"Children and grandchildren will have their own blessings."

The old man dropped a piece and interrupted, "Don't worry, if they are lucky enough to come back alive, I will still pave a way out for them as I said before. It's okay to be a bit cowardly."

"Master, these years... you have gone a little crazy."

"How do I talk to Master?"

"Master..."

"Ok?"

"you lose."

The middle-aged scholar made a heavy move, and White secured the victory.

"Don't you know how to let me go?"

The old man stood up angrily: "I think you want to piss me off to death!"

"Master, it wasn't me who won, it was His Majesty who won..."

The middle-aged scholar closed his eyes and let out a long sigh: "We have all been deceived. The three northwestern states are fake. Their real target is Yunzhou. Even if we dispatch Youzhou soldiers to rescue them, it will take at least seven days.

"Ten days is enough time for them to complete the blood sacrifice."

"Haha~"

The old man suddenly laughed at himself, his old voice filled with sadness: "It seems that I can't survive him."

"There are nearly a million people in the entire Yunzhou!"

The middle-aged scholar's eyes were red, he tapped the chessboard, his voice trembling: "In his eyes, what are his people? What are we!
"There is still a final batch of selected generals in reserve. Some of them are here for fame and success, or for the magic in your hands. Which one of them is here for the sake of the people of the world? Is it for them to join the Eight Camps?
"Is there still hope for the Great Sheng Dynasty? How miserable the people of Yunzhou are!!!"

"Old Four."

The old man put his hands behind his back and looked into the distance: "If we drive them away from the main battlefield in the northwest within three days, how many people can I save if I rush over there?"

The middle-aged scholar shook his head and sighed: "Except for the three prefectures, there must be no one alive..."

"See you, Overseer—"

A figure appeared in front of the two and knelt on one knee.

"Han Cheng."

The middle-aged scholar hurriedly asked, "How are your junior brothers and sisters?"

"All is well!"

Han Cheng clasped his fists and said, "Under the protection of Mr. Chen from Poyang County, we are almost at the Hongze River!"

"it is good."

The middle-aged scholar showed a little comfort on his face: "Quick, send someone to bring them all back. This Junior Brother Chen, saving the junior brothers and sisters is a first-class merit."

"I'm afraid Master Chen won't be able to come back..."

Han Cheng lowered his head and said, "There is one thing that the commander-in-chief doesn't know yet. When Lord Chen left, he not only took the young master and young lady with him, he... he also took more than 30,000 civilians with him!

“So that the people can cross the river safely.

"He just led a thousand men to counterattack against the 20,000-strong barbarian army!"

"what?!"

(End of this chapter)