Cut off my army's food supplies? I'll open a portal between the two worlds and max out my

A large number of merchants led their convoys toward Anxi Town.

Walking across the desolate Gobi Desert, a group of merchant leaders gathered together: "Isn't this supposed to be a middle ground? I remember there are many pastoral tribes here. Is it safe?"

His meaning is clear: a place with commercial development potential must have a long-term stable environment.

Otherwise, who would dare to come?

"Is that herdsman merchant lying to us?"

Some people started to back out.

"Impossible." The leader shook his head and analyzed, "The trading post he's at belongs to that noble princess of the White Elephant Kingdom. When we left, the prime minister of the White Elephant Kingdom was in Tongcheng. That prime minister wouldn't allow anyone to steal the reputation of their noble princess."

The leader's words dispelled everyone's doubts.

"Let's keep going."

The merchants hurried on their way with trepidation.

As they approached Anxi Town, some people noticed something was wrong.

"Huh? What's that?"

Someone stopped and immediately went forward to take a look.

"What is it?" asked the companion behind.

After squatting down and observing for a moment, the man said, "It looks like the excrement of some kind of animal. I can confirm it's not from cattle, sheep, or horses."

"What's so strange about feces?"

"Animal excrement is not unusual, but look over there?" the man pointed.

Looking in the direction he pointed, the ground was covered with this kind of excrement, and there were signs that the ground had been turned over.

That's strange.

Puzzled, the group had no choice but to continue walking along the road.

Once they were fully close to Anxi Town, they noticed a small hill not far away.

The valley that was once called Fengyue Valley was more like a basin between two mountain slopes than a valley, and the terrain on both sides could not even be called mountains.

What surprised the merchants was not the hillside itself, but the lush green area at its foot, which, with the Tumu River as its baseline, enclosed the entire area surrounding the hillside.

"That's farmland, isn't it?" one of the merchants couldn't help but ask.

The leader glanced back at him, his eyes filled with disdain as if to say: "I'm not blind! Can't I see that's farmland?"

The question is... why are there so many neatly cultivated farmlands in the Gobi Desert?

"I have only seen farmland of this scale within the Great Zhou Pass. Even the Yanshan area before the invasion of the Northern Desert tribes was not as large as this."

"Aren't you afraid of being robbed by other tribes while farming in a place like this? I remember there are quite a few nomadic tribes around here, aren't there?"

These merchants were not locals; they had only recently arrived in Tongcheng and were unaware of the legends surrounding the Anxi Army.

Therefore, it is unclear how useful Li Wen's reputation is in this Gobi Desert.

"There's a road ahead!"

"What a neat and tidy road!!"

These merchants, who considered themselves to be from the city, wondered what good things a tribal place could have besides soap as a local specialty.

As a result, they now exclaim in amazement everywhere, like city bumpkins who have just come to the countryside.

Who has the energy to build roads to the countryside? The road surface is even smoother than those in Tongcheng.

Could it be that Anxi Town built it? What would a small tribe like that want to do with such a long road?!

Puzzled, the group had no choice but to continue walking.

What the merchants didn't notice was a black dot following far behind them.

If you look closely, you can see that he is a knight wearing animal skins and a black turban, and his exposed body is covered with tattoos.

This is a tradition of the Northern Hu people.

The Northern Hu people are inherently fierce, their lifestyle is mainly based on hunting, their life motto is "If my neighbor hoards grain, I will swallow my own sword and spear," and their favorite thing to do is to rob their neighbors.

They live year-round in the area where the northern desert and grassland meet.

Even the northern tribes, the overlords of the grasslands, were constantly harassed by the northern barbarians, and the northern tribes had no way to deal with these northern barbarians.

You want to wipe them out because they are ruthless by nature. If you bring too few people, you might not be able to defeat them. If you bring too many people, they will run into the depths of the desert at the slightest sound.

The army simply cannot stay in the desert for too long, otherwise resupply will be a major problem.

Even the notorious northern tribes thought the Northern Hu people were no good, which shows how infamous they were.

After the cavalry following behind the caravan determined the direction of the caravan's destination, they blew out a sharp sound using specially made whistles.

Siu! Siu! Siu!

The piercing whistle cut through the sky and carried into the distance.

Soon, a response came from afar. The Northern Hu cavalrymen's eyes flashed with ferocity as they looked at the caravan not far away, as if they were staring at a flock of hungry lambs.

What was that sound?

The caravan also heard this sharp sound.

"The sound of birds, isn't it? It must be the big black bird in the sky."

My companion pointed to the sky.

The speaker looked up and saw that there was indeed a large black bird in the sky.

"Why does this bird look so square?"

The person who spoke muttered something and then ignored it.

rear.

The Northern Hu cavalry were extremely fast and quickly approached the slow-moving caravan.

"Boss, the lambs are just ahead."

The Northern Hu cavalry numbered three hundred, and their choice to launch their attack not far from Anxi Town was intentional.

These northern nomads heard the legends about Li Chen after wandering to the Gobi Desert, but they did not believe it because they always thought they were the most powerful!

After learning that Anxi Town only had 800 soldiers, the leader of the Northern Hu people kept thinking about plundering Anxi Town.

However, there has never been a suitable opportunity, since the Anxi Army was composed of elite troops from the Great Zhou Dynasty, which made the Northern Hu people quite wary.

They are fierce, but not stupid.

During their time in hiding, they kept sending scouts to investigate the situation near Anxi Town and survey the terrain... until a piece of intelligence was delivered to him.

A sizable caravan will be heading towards Anxi Town from Tongcheng.

The leader of the Northern Hu believed this was a good opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

He deliberately chose to raid not far from Anxi Town, so that they could both plunder caravans and demonstrate their power in front of Anxi Town—wolves would deliberately create disturbances among sheep before hunting them, and the hunters would naturally reveal their weaknesses during the commotion.

Especially in settlements like Anxi Town, which didn't even have city walls, the leaders of the Northern Hu people saw them as no different from flocks of sheep.

The leader of the Northern Hu people believed that as long as they plunged Anxi Town into chaos, they could soon turn their plundering targets to Anxi Town.

As a greedy Northern Hu person, the Northern Hu leader's choice was naturally to have it all!

Sigrún has taught at the Iceland University of the Arts as a part-time lecturer since and was Dean of the Department of Fine Art from -. In – she held a research position at Reykjavík Art Museum focusing on the role of women in Icelandic art. She studied fine art at the Icelandic College of Arts and Crafts and at Pratt Institute, New York, and holds BA and MA degrees in art history and philosophy from the University of Iceland. Sigrún lives and works in Iceland.

"Where is the Northern Hu people located?" Li Wen asked Jiang Tian.

Jiang Tian put down the communication artifact and replied, "General, they are less than six miles away from the caravan."

Three kilometers is practically nothing to the people of Beihu, who are known for their endurance.

With a confident smile, Li Wen rode forward on his horse: "Let's go. This group of Northern Hu people has been wandering around Anxi Town for so long. Let's go and see what kind of people they really are."