Song Dynasty

Chapter 254 Dawn
Dawn is the darkest hour of the day, and the soldiers sleep most soundly at this moment.

Wu Tuo felt extremely uneasy tonight, and couldn't sleep anymore, so he dragged Du Shu to talk while drinking tea.Although the two went all the way from Huangzhou to Jiankang, and then from Jiankang to Dingzhou.But Wu Tuo has a simple and straightforward personality, and Du Shu is a refined and romantic person, and his personality is not compatible, and he didn't have much contact along the way.

What they said tonight was actually more than before combined.

After yawning for a long time, Du Shu said: "General Wu, it's getting late, and it's probably half an hour before dawn. Why don't I stare here first, and you stare for a while."

Wu Tuo shook his head: "What's the point of sleeping at this time, it's fine, I'll ask the soldiers to get up and bury the pots for cooking, and when the food is ready, it will be dawn, and it's time to set off after eating."

Just in time, a large group of waterfowl suddenly roared into the sky in the distance, and the sound sounded like wild ducks and egrets.

A few soldiers were awakened by the sound of birds, and raised their heads sleepily.

Du Shu laughed: "It's okay, go to sleep!"

Suddenly, Wu Tuo felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and he subconsciously jumped up as if he had been electrocuted. He stretched out his legs and kicked the soldiers on the ground beside him, and shouted: "Get up, everyone get up."

"alert!"

"Extinguishing!"

The shouts were extremely loud, and the soldiers all woke up, looking at their general in doubt.

Du Shu: "General Wu, what's wrong?"

Wu Tuo put on the armor swiftly with a blue face: "Zhiniang thief, we are being targeted by someone, and we don't know which team it is. The waterfowl that startled in the middle of the night should be near us. It is the enemy who came here in the middle of the night. Friends!" He continued to shout: "Get up, be on guard!"

Hearing his shout, there was chaos in the camp, and the soldiers jumped up one by one to touch weapons and armor, and there were figures everywhere.

Du Shu broke into a cold sweat when he heard this: "I'm being targeted, how many enemies are there/"

"I don't know, I can't see it, but looking at the posture of the startled waterfowl, there must be more than us. Straight mother thief, hurry up, put out the fire, do you want to become a living target for the thief?" Wu Tuo raised A soldier, roaring loudly.

The soldier responded, quickly picked up the bucket, fetched water from the river on the side of the road, and poured it on the campfire.

Amid the sound of "Chi Chi", heat filled the air.

"Ah—" With a shrill cry, the soldier carrying the bucket was hit by an arrow in his vest, his body lost his strength in an instant, and he slipped into the water on the side of the road with a "swipe", and he was never seen again.

Almost at the same time, hundreds of feathered arrows flew out of the reeds by the roadside, pouring into the crowd like a torrential rain.

"Ding Ding" the feather arrow hit the armor.

"Tuk Tuk" the feather arrow hit the shaft of the cart.

"唰唰唰" the feather arrow hit the human body.

Hot bloody ideas fluttered in the air, and the smell of fishy smell swayed with the wind.

A series of muffled low hums was the sound of a puffy human body falling to the ground.

Standing next to the fire, Wu Tuo was tall and long-armed, covered in shining armor all over his body. He naturally became the target of many enemy archers. Almost instantly, he was covered with arrows.

He snorted, tore off six or seven arrows and threw them aside, shouting loudly: "Everyone listen, you don't want to hide behind the car!"

In the wind, the reeds were surging like waves, and there was a loud sound of paddling.

Listening to the sound, there are at least dozens of small boats and thousands of people.

"Kill all the Sizhou thieves, kill all the Sizhou thieves!" Manichaeism monsters shouted and killed from all directions, and the dull ox horn blowing made people's blood boil.

I saw small boats rushing ashore one after another, and the black monsters jumped off before the boats stopped, rushing towards the convoy densely.

The rain of arrows still didn't stop, they couldn't stop shooting, and in a blink of an eye, the cart was covered with fluttering feathers.

Although Wu Tuo's soldiers went to Jiankang a while ago, although they encountered many water bandits, they also fought a few fierce battles.But most of them are caught and killed on the river, and there are not many enemies.Everyone played two rounds at will, each paying one or two lives, and one party was scared and ran away.

After all, these soldiers were nothing more than rural soldiers from Huangzhou before, and they had never experienced a real battle.Seeing so many enemies, everyone shrank their heads behind the car and dared not stand up straight.

Wu Tuo was furious, and ran back and forth behind the car with a long gun in his hand, lifting one soldier after another from the back of the car, and yelled: "Stand up, fight, fight, fight!"

"Don't be afraid, the thieves only have one life. Of course we will die, and they will go to the king of Hades if they are cut by our sword!"

"It's pitch black, there's water everywhere, there's no way to escape, if you want to survive, you have to fight the enemy!"

"Wow!" Just as he was shouting, a thief jumped onto the cart with two knives in his hands, his face looked extremely ferocious in the night light.

The soldiers of the township army didn't expect the enemy to rush in front of them so easily, they were all stunned, and no one went up to stop them.

Wu Tuo was furious, and threw the spear in his hand with a "huh", hitting the thief's chest, piercing through it.

Another enemy jumped into the car, before he had time to draw his gun, Wu Tuo burst out with spring thunder, three steps in parallel, rushed forward to grab the end of the gun and loosen it hard.

The bloody gun head pierced the culprit's vest and strung him together with another culprit.

"Dang!" Wu Tuo felt his body heat up, and his right shoulder was so painful that he had no strength.

It turned out that the third thief jumped onto the cart, and the hoe in his hand just hit him on the shoulder.

"Hoo-hum!" A long arrow was shot, and the feathered arrow entered from the right neck of the thief holding the hoe and exited from the left neck.

Wu Tuo looked back, only to see Du Shu tremblingly holding a recurve bow, his face was bloodless.

He grinned, nodded to Du Shu, and shook his right hand, feeling his strength return. "Shua" a hand ax came out, and chopped a thief out of the car.

In the blink of an eye, four people died in the hands of Wu Tuo.The thieves who swarmed up were also frightened, and they didn't dare to jump on the cart again, they just used their long weapons to poke towards this side randomly across the cart.

Wu Tuo looked intently, but saw that the open space from the cart to the water was full of dark crowds, and many of these thieves had ragged clothes and their flesh was exposed.All of them were sallow and thin, with disheveled faces, and the weapons in their hands were extremely simple, mostly farm tools such as hoes, flails, and rakes.

In contrast, the Huangzhou Township Army managed to eat three meals a day at any rate, and each of them was overnourished and powerful, and they were people from two worlds.

Wu Tuo laughed loudly, stabbing forward with his long spear, and shouting: "Brothers Paozhe, look at the enemy in front of you, Zhiniang thief probably hasn't eaten for several days, Zhiniang Thieves, if we lose to them. When we return to Huangzhou, people ask who we will lose to, how should we answer!"

He said so many words in one breath, but he didn't take a breath, which shows how strong his energy is: "Kill the thief!"

"Kill the thief!" After seeing the enemy's crude equipment, the soldiers of the township army who were still in bright armor were courageous, and they also raised their long weapons to stab the enemy across the cart.

As soon as the order was restored, the physical and equipment advantages of the soldiers of the Huangzhou Township Army suddenly appeared, and they instantly took an absolute advantage.

Although they were not covered in steel like the regular troops of the Sizhou Army, they still had a leather armor and a helmet.The armor was also inlaid with iron leaves. If ordinary swords were not strong enough to cut them, they would really be unable to do anything to them, not to mention that most of the thieves held wooden sticks with iron plates in their hands.

Usually, when the enemy's spear stabs, at most they will take a few steps back, gasping for air in pain.But when their spears poke past, they will easily harvest a life.

After discovering that this was just a pure massacre, the township soldiers became courageous and shouted in bursts of anger: "Kill the thief, kill the thief!"

Wu Tuo shuttled back and forth in the team, rectified the troops while running, and shouted: "Pikemen go ahead, stab, stab me. Archers stand behind the pikemen, shoot the mother!"

In the random shooting of feather arrows and the stabbing of spears, the bandit army fell to the ground in a mess.In the flickering bonfire, puddles of human blood flowed out from the dead people, spread on the ground, and gradually merged into a small river nearby.

In a blink of an eye, the river has become red.

The thieves were still rushing forward, but under the rectification of the enemy's generals, they finally had some rules.The roar of the enemy general came from behind: "Shieldman, go to the front and protect the spearman. Archer, keep shooting, don't aim, don't care who is in front, just shoot!"

At the same time, Wu Tuo also ordered: "The archers of the Bow and Arrow Club, shoot another round of volley." The military power of the Song Dynasty mainly consisted of three parts: the imperial army, the Xiang army and the township army.

The imperial army is a regular field army directly under the central government, while the Xiang army is a local army stationed in a local area.As for the township army, it is the civilian security team.

Since the founding of the Northern Song Dynasty, there have been constant wars, fighting with the Xixia party members, fighting with the Khitan and Xi people of the Liao state, and fighting with the Jurchen of the Jin state.There are also constant wars internally, Wang Xiaobo, Li Shun, Tian Hu, Wang Qing, Fang La, and now they are Zhong Xiang again.

Especially in civil wars, it is necessary to fight bravely to protect the place.Therefore, in the area north of the Yangtze River, folk martial arts flourished, and many group exercises such as horse riding clubs and bow and arrow clubs were organized.

Although the archers and archers of the Huangzhou Township Army are not very good, they can't stand up to the equipment. The enemy and the enemy are so close, just shoot, and every arrow can easily hit a thief.

"Pikeman, listen to my order, stab—"

Dozens of spears protruded forward at the same time, and the sound of "pu chi" piercing into the flesh became one piece.

"receive!"

"Shua!" Lian Tian screamed.

Wu Tuo pulled out the two bones hanging from his waist: "Swordsman, get ready!"

The two carts slowly separated, revealing a passage.

Gu Duo in Wu Tuo's hand flattened a thief's chest: "Swordsman, come with me!" His whole body has turned into a ball of black light and rushed into the enemy group.

At this moment, Du Shu's eyes suddenly lit up. With a bow in his hand, Du Shu, whose body was still trembling, turned his head subconsciously, and saw a ray of red light projected from the eastern horizon.

Dawn comes.

(End of this chapter)