Chapter 226: The Four Battles of Northern Liang (VIII)

A group of people walk on the grass of Tianjing Ranch, the ground is soft, and occasionally there will be standing water slowly overflowing from around the boots, it can be seen that the pasture here in Longxi is rich in water and grass. As second only to the fiber away from the ranch of the northern Liang Road horse breeding place, winter and spring without boundary, summer and autumn connected, climate conditions unique Longxi, since ancient times is the horse source of each prosperous dynasty, the Dafeng dynasty in the Longdong Longxi area of 300,000 horses, set up the post of the right Long Long horse herding supervisor, known as not losing the Dafeng founding emperor of the Zhongxing of the king Liu Ze two northern expedition, had been in the area of the collection of 160,000 war horses. North Mang Longguan aristocracy is actually the earliest is eight hundred years ago, the Qin dynasty in the war in the north migration stray people, tracing back to the roots, were once between Longxi to Tongguan Qin people.

In a line of people, Tianjing Ranch’s principal Zhao Luyuan looks especially trembling, no way, behind him temporarily as a green leaf accompaniment of the five or six characters, there are official positions, such as the Horned Eagle Lieutenant Luo Hongcai, without exception is the Beiliang fourteen real power lieutenants, as for the only one without an official body, earlier also did a few years of Liangzhou generals of the Beiliang army generals Shifu, only a pity dragged down in the last Beiliang Du Guards heart of the label, and the new Liang king’s hereditary title, the new Liang king’s hereditary title, the new Liang king’s hereditary title is not the new Liang king’s title, the new Liang king’s hereditary title is not the new Liang king’s title. Not waiting for the new Liang King hereditary replacement, Shi Fu himself will be interested in resigning from the armor, I do not know why this time to carry out, Zhao Luyuan also do not know whether Shi Fu is to be settling scores or to rise again. Zhao Luyuan apprehensive reason, in addition to the side of the young man is Xu Fengnian, more or because of the Tianjing Ranch this time in the face of danger, but can only draw out less than five thousand war horses, Class A horses is only six hundred horses, from the requirements of the King of Beiliang is still a lot of money, but Zhao Luyuan has the pain of self-awareness, if the King early half a year to this time to ask for the horse, not to mention not divided into grades of the 8,000 horses, or 8,000 horses! The first class Beiliang horse, he can also give, before the Beiliang government from this place to urgently draw out 10,000 horses, this 600 A word horse or he is not easy to leave the last home base, with the former ranch to ask for the horse Huai Yang Guan “minister” anxious red-eye, scolded that person is doing to dry up the fishing hook, and said you are the government of the big deal! Zhao Luyuan slapped the table and threatened to talk to the King’s Qingliangshan Wutongyuan high imperial petition. But now the cool king Xu Fengyuan came around, Zhao Luyuan really do not dare to say to the face of Huaiyangguan that the Northern Liang Dugu Fu half a word of bad words, only to ramble about some humble incompetence negative entrusted nonsense, Zhao Luyuan and not stupid, not to mention the Northern Liang, the whole world knows Chu Dugu with the relationship of the new cool king, just a different family name of the real family ah.

Xu Fengyen and Zhao Luyuan walk side by side in the pasture grass, behind is in his prime but often silent Shi Fu, and the Horned Eagle Lieutenant Luo Hongcai and others, which is responsible for the security of the western gate of Liangzhou Longxi Lieutenant Zhao Rongguang. Tianjing Ranch has a vast terrain and beautiful scenery, Longxi winter is long without summer, and there is a unique climate of June cold and frost, so nowadays it is much cooler than other places. Except for the expressionless Xu Fengyen, Luo Hongcai and the others looked anxious, even Shi Fu, who had quit the army for nearly two years, also frowned tightly. Xu Fengyen looked at the fertile grass in front of him, a lot of feelings, since the map extends to the western region of the Dafeng, the world’s military horses half out of the two Long, there are a lot of royal relatives and princes and generals in the private horse here, prefer to raise horses more or less than the power of the high and low, the way to make a fortune of the Beiliang Road, the Secretary of the Li Gongde proposed early on whether you can open the horse ban to the city of Tai’an and the Central Plains dignitaries to sell the horses below the B class war horse, which will be a huge income. would be a huge income, thus reducing the pressure for the tax of Northern Liang, but was directly rejected by Xu Snapdragon. After the scholars went to Liang, there is no lack of readers who are proposing the same strategy, making a big fuss about Liang horses, without cutting the reserve of A, B and C war horses, they can still give away the tax and increase the pay of the soldiers, make friends with the prominent nobles in the capital, and show goodwill to the Zhao family in Liyang, which can be said to be a hundred benefits without any harm. Song Dongming’s Dragon Gate and Xu Weixiong’s Wutong Yuan did not dare to take the liberty of making a decision on this, and after handing over the decision to Xu Fengyen, they also had some deep thoughts, and ultimately shelved the matter.

Xu Fengyen stopped at the top of a gently sloping hill, raising his eyes and looking around, the greenery was full of color.

Xu Fengyen suddenly turned his head to the nearly fifty year old Zhao Luyuan and smiled: ”Lord Zhao, this is actually our second time meeting, back then, this king was still young and accompanied Xu Primrose here to escape the summer heat, I remember that Lord Zhao had just withdrawn from the Liangzhou Border Army, and had not long taken up his post at the Tianjing Ranch, and at that time, when the horse ranch was still undergoing a lot of development, Lord Zhao patted his breast and guaranteed with Xu Primrose that in less than ten years, he would be able to make Longxi will become the largest horse farm in Liyang, I wonder if Lord Zhao still remembers promising Xu Primrose that he would someday bring out the world’s best steed to celebrate my coronation as His Highness the son of the world?”

The old man who has dealt with war horses all his life immediately became excited and said in a trembling voice: “Your Highness still remembers, still remembers ah …… how my humble servant dares to forget, not to mention that the Tianjing Ranch is dedicated to cultivating good horses, and for so many years has also been entrusted to the border army generals and crossbowmen, as long as in the desert steppe to see that handsome and extraordinary The king of wild horses, after capture must be sent to the Tianjing Ranch, in fact, four years ago there really is a steed sent to the ranch, just the king and the crown ceremony, the old man mistakenly thought that the king to forget about this, but also afraid of being said to be unprofessional only know the bastard officials, hesitated for a number of days, in the end, or did not send to the king’s house of the Qingliang Mountain, and finally can not stand our cavalry Zhou Vice Marshal’s pleas, so we have to send! Sent out, as far as I had known so …… alas, the old man really regretted it!”

Xu Fengnian laughed: “It’s okay, we can have today’s Northern Liang Iron Horsemen, Tianjing Ranch and Fibers away from the ranch within the size of all the horse farms, the credit can not be ignored. To this day, how many times has this king been on the battlefield? To say that having two Grade B horses for riding is barely worthy, having another Grade A horse would be a waste.”

Probably knowing that Zhao Luyuan was going to fight for himself, Xu Fengyuan waved his hand and said, “You guys go back first, I’ll talk to General Shi about something.”

The crowd left, leaving behind that Northern Liang recognized eunuchs bumpy road of Shi Fu, this person and Youzhou Assassin Hu Kui in the past years known as the Liangzhou double wall, are young but significant achievements of the border army “old man”, double wall of this expression, the earliest is to say that the two earliest in the Spring and Autumn Warfare two of the two cavalry generals, Wu Qi and Xu Pu, when Xu Snap is still in the war of the Spring and Autumn, not a vassal, so Xu Fengnian waved his hand and said: “You first go back, I’ll talk to me about things. At that time, Xu Primrose was still fighting in the Spring and Autumn period, and did not have a king as a vassal, so the two were known as the double wall of the Xu family, and now one of them is incognito in the city of Dunhuang in the Northern Mang, and one of them went to the Western Sichuan to assist Chen Zhi Bao. Chen Zhi Bao’s departure from Liang into Shu, while Xu Feng Nian’s hereditary replacement of the king of Northern Liang, become Shi Fu and Hu Kui in the officialdom of a watershed, the latter re-emerged as a side of the feudal officials, the rank of the higher Shi Fu was eclipsed by the disengagement of the armored return to the field. But the strange thing is, for Shi Fu’s resignation, whether it is the Qingliang Mountain or set up after the Huai Yang Guan Palace, are treated with an attitude of disregard, even if the later Chu Lu Shan concurrently served as General of Liangzhou, did not explicitly inform the military community of Liangzhou Shi Fu has been withdrawn from the military, the military situation, the diaper will still be routinely sent once every half a decade to the recuperation of the “General of Liangzhou” at home. “Shi Fu.

Xu Fengnian softly asked: “General Shi, West Sichuan Road, this time 10,000 elite troops went to Guangling Road, Wei Fu Cheng and Dian Xiong Animal two people only served as vice generals, handed over to an outsider Huyan Rubbing as the main general. And the border between Northern Liang and Western Shu, Chen Zhi Bao let a young man named Che Ye guard the northern gate of Western Shu, for these two things, what is General Shi’s opinion?”

Shi Fu’s brows furrowed up more and more, and he kept his mouth shut.

Xu Fengyen quietly waited for the following, seemingly determined to wait for this former King of Shu’s beloved to open his mouth, thus handing in his submission. But Shi Fu gritted his teeth and just didn’t say anything, his expression became more and more gloomy, if the young feudal king asked about Liuzhou, or Liangzhou Hutou City Youzhou Huloukou, Shi Fu thought that he would know everything, but Chen Zhi Bao has cultivated him Shi Fu, no matter whether Chen Zhi Bao is against Northern Liang or not, as long as Chen Zhi Bao didn’t explicitly aim his spearhead at Northern Liang for a day, he, Shi Fu, wouldn’t turn his eyes against Chen Zhi Bao for a day. Even if he angered Xu Fengnian today, Shi Fu would still not hesitate to do so. For the side of this young Xu family, Shi Fu in fact extremely admired, just some of the things that touch the bottom line, Shi Fu can not pass the threshold of the heart, so when the cavalry as the commander-in-chief of the Huaihua General Zhong Hongwu, only to Shi Fu this young man exceptionally “impressed”, as a thorn in the side of the eye.

Xu Fengyen didn’t wait for an answer, and asked again, “If this king says that General Shi Fu can raise his clan of 300 people, and all of them can safely migrate to Western Sichuan, then will you go to Western Sichuan?”

Shi Fu hesitated for a moment, smiled bitterly and said, “Unlike Wei Fu Cheng Deng Xiong animal, also different from the North Mang all alone Che Ye, my Shi Fu’s family in Liangzhou is a big family, even if I am willing to go to West Sichuan, plus the king will not stop, but accustomed to the North Liang terroir of the family of a lot of old people, will not agree to leave their homes, which is related to my Shi Fu can not be in the west of the country in the West Shu to be a big official again. This has nothing to do with whether or not I can become a big official again in Xi Shu. I won’t hide it from you, Your Highness, but I can’t help it. Take a step back and say, in fact, if the Shi family really wants to move to Xi Shu with those ancestral tablets, not to mention the other things, the family’s three people who are of the same generation as me and the four nephews’ generation of young people who have been serving in Liangzhou’s border army should all stay in Beiliang. In this way, before even leaving Beiliang Dao, the Shi family has already been torn apart.”

Xu Fengnian smiled skinlessly and said, “General Shi is quite frank and honest.”

Shi Fu laughed and said, “It’s useless to hide, I know that within the Shi family, there are spies who have been planted in the water whisking room for many years, it’s not that I have the ability to have this fiery eyes, but Chu Lushan made a special trip to the Shi family to have a ‘frank and sincere meeting’ with me before he took office as the Northern Liang Capital Protector. So in these two years, I haven’t had a single day to sleep soundly. It’s funny, in the early years in the border army, even many times when I went deep into the hinterland of Northern Mang and rested anywhere by warhorse, I slept better than nowadays when I come to my own bed and couch.”

Xu Fengyen for Chu Lushan in the stone family to insert eyes within the matter does not deny, change the topic, laugh and ask: “Tianjing ranch currently has eight hundred white horse from the righteous, Luo Hongcai and two lieutenants of the three thousand four hundred riders, coupled with the ranch itself of the Longxi garrison, and Zhao Rongguang stayed in the same place of the two thousand riders, together, is still less than eight thousand, the next king can only wait for three days at the most, the east gate of Liangzhou Tongguan One of the two major lieutenants of Liangzhou’s eastern gate, Xin Drinking Horse, will also lead three thousand elite cavalry to come, the number of people can be more than ten thousand, General Shi thinks that this ten thousand cavalry hurriedly put into the battlefield of Liuju, is it able to send charcoal in the snow, or is it far away from quenching the thirst of the near water?”

Shi Fu asked rhetorically, “If Shi Fu speaks frankly, will His Majesty really listen?”

Xu Fengnian said blandly, “Let’s hear it first. After all, you, Shi Fu, are not a famous Spring and Autumn general veteran like Yan Wenluan Chen Yuntui, nor are you one of the Xu family’s own people like Chu Lushan Yuan Zuozong, who has made great achievements in battle, and you are not yet qualified to say anything that will make this king listen.”

Shi Fu sighed, still slowly spoke: “in my opinion, the king of this 10,000 riders not to say a drop in the bucket, but may be beneficial to the situation of this state of Liuzhou, but categorically not different from the big picture of the northern Liang, if I am the king, it would be even more thorough, so that the two vice generals of the Lingzhou, Wang Zhi and Huang Xiao-quick lead, with the Smoke Xia lieutenant Jiao Wuyi and other lieutenants of the school troops and horses as the main force, not only but the Liangzhou The cavalry within Liangzhou should flood into Liuzhou to solve the pressing problem, but should also decisively move these Lingzhou’s capable cavalry northward into Liuzhou as well, and after defeating Liu Gui’s army on the western front of North Mang, quickly fill the gap outside Liangzhou Pass and south of Huaiyang Pass ……”

Shi Fu suddenly felt the young vassal king’s killing intent and said frankly, “Originally, I didn’t know the situation, but since I came to the Tianjing Ranch and heard about the number of warhorses in this ranch, seeing the small things and knowing the big things, Shi Fu more or less guessed the king’s and the capital government’s plot, and the king doesn’t need to think much about this.”

Xu Fengnian nodded, squatted down, plucked a licorice and chewed it.

Shi Fu continued, “In the final analysis, the Liangmang dispute, outside Liangzhou Pass and Liuzhou and Youzhou, the three battlefields will each have their own winners and losers, but the place that truly determines our Northern Liang’s survival is actually only outside Liangzhou Pass, if this place is lost, Northern Liang will also lose the Northern Liang’s great power that was so hard to save up for two generations of Great Generals and Your Highnesses. The king’s military risk, let Yuan commander of the 10,000 big snow dragon riders and two heavy cavalry army to go to Youzhou Hulukou, to eat Yang Yuanzan’s eastern army, naturally not wrong, on the contrary, very surprising victory, but the matter of the military, should never be odd and positive and can not win in a moment of a place but to lose the momentum, in the Spring and Autumn Period, there have been a lot of such obvious generals to win the big battle but the king killed the country of the ridiculous battles, the west wall of the base. Battle before the final division of victory, the outside world who are optimistic about a series of small victories in the western Chu, but the great general is sparing the sharp depletion of troops to complete the siege of the western bastion wall, and even go so far as to take a few troops and horses in the important but not really critical battlefield, take the initiative to lure the bulk of the elite of the western Chu to eat up, just to create the western bastion wall of the perimeter of the defense of the little gap, the battle of Princess Grave, Yuan Commander of the great glory, is a clear evidence.”

Xu Fengnian stood up violently, “General Shi, these 10,000 horsemen are yours, three days at the latest, you will take them to Liuju to ride to the aid of Qingcang City and the Longxiang Army.”

Shi Fu froze on the spot, both puzzled as to why he was able to take on the big responsibility, and also puzzled as to why Xu Fengyen was not leading the army himself.

Xu Fengyen spat out the chewed grass root and said in a deep voice, “I got the news this morning, Hutou City has been lost, and the Northern Mang army is pressing on the three towns of Huaiyang Liuya Poria.”

Shi Fu’s face changed drastically, shocked, “How could Tiger Head City be lost so quickly?!”

Xu Fengyen turned to look to the north, “Dong Zhuo, this madman, previously sent people to dig a tunnel to their deaths every few days, sixteen tunnels, resulting in the deaths of a whole 5,000 people, but no one thought that this guy didn’t dig sixteen secret tunnels at all, but rather, he was heartless enough to dig a whole thirty-eight tunnels! Twelve of them all only dug to the outside of the city and stopped, and then at no cost ground siege with ……”

Speaking here, Xu Fengnian stopped speaking.

Shi Fu muttered, “This madman, this son of a bitch son of a bitch ……”

Xu Fengyen turned his head to Shi Fu and said, “I’m going to Huaiyang Pass right away, Shi Fu, you will resume your status as a Liangzhou general from now on. Not only those 10,000 riders, but all the Lingshu cavalry that enters Liangzhou territory afterward will be placed under your command.”

Shi Fu heavily exhaled a mouthful of turbid air and cupped his fists, “I will lead!”