Chapter 5 Chapter 5 Ordinary People

On the fourth day, it was almost time to reach Meridian Valley. Yang Hao's mood became tense, he didn't know if Luo Kedi could get here with the huge fleeing team, gallop out of the wilderness, rush to Guangyuan City, and then return that day, and walk back as fast as possible. It took seven days. During this time, it is reasonable to say that Luo Kedi's team should have reached Meridian Valley, if they can make it out. When he left, the army still had some drinking water and food in their hands, saving and distributing a little every day, allowing most people to hang their lives and continue on their way. I'm afraid I can't hold on to the lack of food.When Yang Hao drove out from the wilderness, he saw some sporadic water sources near the edge of the desert. With water, even if Luo Kedi's men and horses ran out of food, they slaughtered the remaining dozen horses and gave them to everyone. Boil the broth and drink it, and it should be able to barely hold on to the place.

But this was just his thoughts, the closer he was to Meridian Valley, the more nervous he was, he was worried that he would not see anyone, he was afraid that only a few people had walked out of the desert.Yang Hao couldn't hold back any longer, so he called Bi Su, Fan Laosi and Liu Shixuan, and the four rode fast horses to rush to Ziwu Valley first. As soon as the four of them left, Dong Shiliu turned his eyes wildly and started thinking of running away.He is a fugitive murderer wanted by the Song court. God knows what happened here. Will this imperial envoy cross the river and demolish the bridge and throw him into the prison? Right now he has dry food in his arms, drinking water in his bag, and a fast horse under his lap. Where can't I go?

The northward journey of the four of Yang Hao is along a big river.This big river flows out of Zixing Valley. Ziwu Valley is a valley facing east and west with two mountains facing each other. The river in the valley turns south and flows to Guangyuan City after leaving the mouth of the valley.The river channel is extremely wide, because it was washed out during the flood, and now the river water only accounts for one-third of the width of the channel, and the rest is densely populated with weeds.The wild meadow makes the ground strong enough to bear the weight of carts and horses. After arriving at the Ziwu Valley, there is a grassland of more than 20 miles to the north, but the grassland is continuous with high mountains, and there is no feasible road. At the beginning, Cheng Shixiong led his army north to join the official army to attack the Northern Han Dynasty. Gu Chu also turned to the west, making a big circle, and then turned to the Northern Han Dynasty.Otherwise, Zhao Da would not have chosen the westward or eastward route when he moved to the people, but he would not have had the option to go directly south to Guangyuan.

But now, if the refugees reach Meridian Valley, they bypass the mountains blocking the way in the north. At this time, there is an additional route to go directly south to Guangyuan. Yang Hao will study it with the generals and consider the next course of action. up.Should we go west directly through the Ziwu Valley, and rush to Fuzhou and Linzhou, where there are enough places to house these many people, or go down the river to Guangyuan, the military town. Guangyuan City can't absorb so many households, and the surrounding land is too barren, and it's not suitable for farming. But you can rest there for a while, and then decide where to take the people.In Yang Hao's heart, he paid attention to the fact that after arriving in Guangyuan City, the refugees were scattered and sent to the Central Plains, and he more or less guessed what the officials were thinking.

Worried about the safety of the refugees all the way, and thinking about the next arrangement after they arrived, Yang Hao galloped fast and had already arrived in front of Meridian Valley.He rode his horse on a high slope of green grass, and seeing the scene in front of him, Yang Hao's tears flowed down immediately.Who said that a man does not flick his tears easily?When there is love, there will be tears! In front of him, there was an endless stream of fleeing troops, whose heads had disappeared and had already submerged into the valley.There is no end to the end, and it is coming continuously.This team is not like soldiers, nor is it like civilians. They are all like beggars, supporting the old and the young, staggering towards the valley.Anyway, they're alive, alive.Even soldiers like Fan Laosi and Liu Shixuan, who killed without blinking an eye, had red eyes when they saw everything in front of them.

"Let's go, let's go over here, let everyone rest here, and tell everyone that the food will be here soon." Yang Hao waved his whip and rushed downhill first.Fan Laosi, Liu Shixuan and Bisu in cassock followed immediately. "I'm Imperial Envoy Yang Hao, where is General Luo?" Yang Hao rushed to the vicinity, stopped his horse, stopped a man who looked like a sergeant and asked, he still had a gun in his hand, and he leaned on the ground with the barrel of the gun at this time, looking precarious. The man was overjoyed when he heard that: "Master Imperial Envoy, Sir Imperial Envoy, you are back. General Luo is behind."

Seeing his tired look, Yang Hao said: "You can rest here, the food will be here soon." The man said: "Don't stop, the Khitan cavalry came out from nowhere, and the army gathered. General Luo ordered me to quickly take them into the valley to hide. After he led the troops, if it was too late, the Khitan cavalry would surround us. It's a fight." "What?" Yang Hao's heart sank to the bottom of the valley all of a sudden, at this moment and here, in such a situation, the Khitan army gathered?What kind of army is needed at this time, only a team of one thousand can kill these tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians calmly like a butcher of pigs and dogs.Could it be...Could it be that in the end, all achievements fall short, and God wants to kill me?

For a moment, Yang Hao's hands and feet were cold, only to hear the soldier say again: "The official army has also arrived, and they are confronting the Khitan cavalry. We must enter the valley as soon as possible to avoid the front of the soldiers." As soon as Yang Hao heard this, his dead heart recovered a bit of vitality: "The official army has also arrived?" "Behind, everyone is behind." The soldier pointed to the back of the team, and Yang Hao didn't answer any more, and immediately rode his horse to meet the team.Fan Laosi and Liu Shixuan followed him and yelled all the way: "Everyone, hurry up, the food will be here soon, and you will have food when you enter the valley, everyone, hurry up."

The vain people under their feet really cheered up when they heard the news, and they used their last bit of strength to speed up their march.Yang Hao rushed to the end of the team, and there were not many people who dropped out at this time, and the crowd was sparse.Looking around, Yang Hao saw Luo Kedi standing on a high slope, waving his hands and urging the few people at the end of the line to hurry up. Yang Hao hurried up the hill, shouting: "General Luo!" Luo Kedi turned his head when he heard the sound, and when he saw him, he said ecstatically, "My lord, has the food arrived?"

Yang Hao stood on the hillside, staring blankly at everything in front of him, unable to answer at all. In front of him was a large open plain, on which two huge army formations were slowly mobilizing.Yang Hao had seen Luo Kedi form an formation, but the small formation hastily formed by thousands of horsemen was nothing compared to the large formation in front of him. The large formation in front of him was dizzying.In the past, watching movies and TV, listening to storytelling, and talking about formations in a mysterious way, but those mysterious formations in front of these two large formations filled with murderous aura are like children's play, so ridiculous to the extreme.

This is the real battle formation, without so many bells and whistles, and there is no complicated mattress. After all, the formation is actually the reasonable distribution of various arms and the reasonable arrangement of various military camps with different tasks.It is only a necessary means for soldiers to maintain formation offensively and defensively.Otherwise, once tens of thousands of people and hundreds of thousands of people enter the battle at the same time, it will immediately become a disorderly melee, and it will be impossible to dispatch and command to exert their power. Whether to have an array or not, under the command conditions at that time, the quality of soldiers, and the limitations of weapons, is an important criterion for whether the maximum combat effectiveness can be exerted.In the past, the Qin army defeated the strong with the weak, and won many battles, but in the end, the million Qin army was defeated in the Battle of Feishui.Wang Meng's 100,000 infantry defeated Qianyan's hundreds of thousands of cavalry, all of whom had merit in battle. Yang Hao climbed up the slope, and the plain in front of him was empty in the direction where the refugees fled, it was an open land.To the north of it is a huge Song army formation.Vanguard formation, vanguard formation, large formation, front formation, east and west abductor formation, landless division of horses, rejection formation, rear formation... At a glance, the small military formations with their own functions are like countless chisels, axes, saws, files, awls, and pliers, forming a sophisticated killing machine, although there are spacious spaces between each small military formation. However, no one dared to rush in hastily, otherwise a team of hundreds or thousands of people would be smashed to pieces in an instant. The south side of the open field, that is, the side they came from, was actually the Khitan camp. I really don't know how their army went around in front of the Song army and blocked their way.The Khitans also had infantry, but similar to the Song Army's deployment of more than 70% of crossbowmen, their army's cavalry configuration also exceeded 70%. The front army of the Khitan cavalry is laying out chariots and hanging formations. This is a cavalry assault tactic developed by Huo Qubing, the great general of the Hussars of the Han Dynasty in the past. Cavalry conical formations are being arranged in an orderly manner. The use of horses, the interval between the horses is also different, enough space is left between the horses, so that when they charge, the enemy infantry can dodge and make way. But...the cavalry team also has dozens or even hundreds of rows, and each row of cavalry is staggered. Once they are allowed to exert their outstanding power, they can wipe out everything in front of them like a lawnmower.They don't have special archers. It takes a long time for the Song army to train a qualified archer, but every knight on the grassland is a good archer. "Master Yang, Master Yang?" "Ah? Ah... Oh, it's here, it's here, General Luo, you're alright." Luo Kedi was so weak that he was about to collapse, but he smiled happily: "Master Yang, the last general is lucky to live up to his fate, the common people... I brought them all back." Fan Laosi rode over, grabbed his arm, and pulled him onto the horse. Yang Hao said: "Old Si, quickly send General Luo to the back, I will come to the rear." Fan Laosi said yes, ignored Luo Kedi's protest, and ran back with him.Yang Hao raised his head and looked at the Song army formation. The large formation was about to be formed. Near the valley on the right side, the Song army cavalry was concentrated. The soldiers and horses were afraid of being attacked by them when they raided the refugee team, so they let go of the beggar team and maintained a confrontation with the Song army. Seeing that the war was about to break out, Yang Hao had no time to watch. He seized the opportunity and rushed down the hillside, shouting to the few remaining people: "Quick, enter the valley immediately, and there will be food to eat when you arrive in the valley! There is going to be a war here, hurry up !" Turning around, he said to Liu Shixuan: "Go quickly, urge the grain team to move faster, and hide in the valley, once the two armies fight, I'm afraid they will be wiped out." Knowing the urgency of the matter, Liu Shixuan hurriedly responded. At this time, a woman turned around and was about to rush out of the valley, and an old man stopped them anxiously. Yang Hao galloped over angrily, and shouted: "You haven't entered the valley yet, what are you dawdling about?" The woman cried, "My child, my child, she was left outside." The old man said with shame: "Sister Ma, I'm really sorry. Old man... old man..., alas, you can't go out, otherwise there is no life left." Yang Hao said in surprise: "Sister-in-law Ma? Your child...what's wrong with the dog?" When the woman turned her head and saw that it was him, she couldn't help being surprised and delighted: "Master Yang, the dog is sick, and the little woman really can't hold her anymore, so I asked Uncle Liu to take care of her. Who knows..." The old man paused and said: "The old man had no strength, so he had no choice but to ask a man to help. Who knew... who knew that the soldiers from the two sides were about to fight, and the man was so timid that he left the child behind him. Up front, alas, the old man is sorry for your sister-in-law..." Speaking of which, the old man also burst into tears. Yang Hao raised his head and looked at the open field. He saw that the horses in the camp of the Khitan people had started to stir slightly. The phalanx is advancing "clang clang". The three armies moved slightly, like the tilt of Mount Tai.He stepped heavily and stomped, and the clang sounded in his ears.Yang Hao couldn't help being startled. In the era of cold weapons, even if you are the champion of the three armies, you can only die if you face ten or twenty long spears without the cover of your comrades.Once you trot or run to charge like a single soldier in the era of hot weapons, the rapid charge will inevitably lead to chaos. At that time, isolated spearmen are only assigned to deliver food to the neat enemy army.After spending so many days in the army, he already knew that in the battle of a large group of thousands of troops, this kind of military parade marching forward was actually a sign of an imminent war. Once the war starts, thousands of arrows fly together, thousands of troops and horses step onto the battlefield, let alone a sick child, who is in the zone where two charges intersect, who can survive? Yang Hao stood on a high place and hurriedly looked down.Suddenly, between the confrontation between the two armies, he vaguely saw a weak figure hesitating forward.Maybe it felt the strong murderous aura emitted when the two armies were about to confront each other. The little thing was trying to run forward, but because of its weakness, it fell to the ground before taking a few steps. Maybe it broke its leg. But he was still persistently crawling forward. It's a dog!Yang Hao's heart tightened suddenly, it was this thin and frail child who had never seen the sun at such an age, and who yearned for Kaifeng, the city that never sleeps. "Uncle Yang Hao!" The crisp call seemed to echo in his ears, Yang Hao's heart felt hot, and he said in a deep voice: "Quickly enter the valley, I will save people!" After saying that, he lifted the rein and rushed out of the valley . He galloped past Bisu, stretched out his hand, and tore off Bisu's cassock, held it high in his hand, and rushed to the center of the battle where the tens of thousands of troops on both sides were about to explode. The scorching sun was in the sky, and thousands of troops and horses on both sides of the open field slaughtered the night, and the swords and halberds were cold, and the chill suppressed the scorching sun in the sky.When the two sides were about to swing their troops to fight, Yang Hao rushed out of the valley on his horse alone. Although there are thousands of people, I will go! This trip has nothing to do with righteousness, it's just for that "Uncle Yang Hao".