Chapter 1185 Hunting

Chapter 1185 Hunting

Chapter 1185 Hunting
Tuoba Shiyijian stood on the hillside, secretly looking into the distance.

Under the willow tree, Mother and Shao Xun sat side by side.

The mountain wind was biting. Shao Xun took off his fake bell, draped it over his mother, and then roasted the prey with his own hands.

Occasionally he would pick up a piece of roasted meat and hand it to his mother, and then his mother would often smile sweetly at him.

The two of them slept in the same tent at night, and Shi Yijian even saw Shao Xun carrying a wooden basin out to pour water.

Are you a cheapskate? You are the emperor, how can you lower yourself so low to please a woman?

If this continues, my mother...

In a state of impotent rage, Wang quietly leaned her head on Shao Xun's shoulder and stretched out a hand to gently hold his waist.

Shi Yijian's face turned green.

He suddenly realized that he was quite a despicable person. He knew that the bastard was very good at deceiving women, so why couldn't he help but peek at him every time?

He shook his head and left quietly.

The grass on the hillside grows lushly, but if you look closely, you'll find that it's actually a little sparser than in previous years.

It's almost the same down the mountain.

"Even after all this, they still want to trample on the grass!" Shi Yijian said gritting his teeth as he looked at the warriors from various tribes who were training.

"It's not your pasture, is there any need to feel sorry for it?" A slightly childish voice suddenly sounded.

Shi Yijian turned back suddenly and cried out in a lost voice: "Li Zhen!"

Yuan Zhen was followed by several fully armed soldiers, each of them holding the hilt of their sword and staring at Shi Yijian.

Shi Yijian was a little scared, but he stood firm and did not retreat, just looked at Yuan Zhen coldly.

But Yuan Zhen ignored him and sat down on the hillside instead. Then he held his chin and looked at the training scene in the distance. He looked a little - childish.

But it's normal, after all, he is only eight years old.

"Sima Wei, which side's the soldiers from Liangcheng?" Yuan Zhen suddenly asked.

"Over there, in the northwest corner, we camped next to the river beach when we arrived yesterday evening." Sima Weihong, lieutenant of Liangcheng State, said.

Wei Hong is a military student, 23 years old this year, from Julu. He previously served as deputy, team leader, and governor in the imperial guards. He has outstanding martial arts and solid military strategies, so he was transferred to be the lieutenant Sima of Liangcheng to replace his predecessor who died suddenly of an acute illness.

Lieutenant Yang Quan of Liangcheng is about to step down, and it is rumored that he will serve as the prefect of Mayi.

However, the position of lieutenant will definitely not be given to Wei Hong. He is too young and lacks experience. He needs more time to mature.

"How many people came this time?" Yuan Zhen asked.

"two thousand."

"Have they all grown up?"

Wei Hong smiled when he heard this and said, "In the tenth year of the Divine Turtle Era (326), Liangcheng State was established. Six years have passed."

"Oh, they've all grown up." Yuan Zhen said happily.

The Liangcheng State was rather special in that its citizens were mainly the remnants of various scattered tribes. Later on, they were not allowed to reintegrate into one tribe, but officials were sent by the imperial court to register the people.

There may be factions within the country, which are formed automatically in clan units, but there is no tribal organizational structure anymore.

At the beginning, most people in Liangcheng Kingdom were old people, women, children, and teenagers, and there were very few adult men.

When Yang Quan was appointed as the lieutenant of Liangcheng, he also selected young men and trained them into an army. Now six years have passed, and the young men have grown up and become the backbone of their families. The country's population structure is developing in a normal direction.

These 3,000 young men train together for at least two months every year. There have been very few personnel changes in the past six years, and they have developed a very good understanding of each other.

The Daliang court sent a lot of equipment and occasionally some silk as rewards. Wang used the Pingcheng court to distribute some food, cattle and sheep to them as military rewards. For her, the Liangcheng army was very reliable. Every summer, she would go to the Liangcheng Palace to escape the heat and inspect the army.

There is no problem with the training of these 3,000 soldiers, but now they need to see blood.

"Shi Yijian, come and see my soldiers." Yuan Zhen waved his hand and said happily.

Shi Yijian had a gloomy face, but for some reason, he finally moved forward and watched silently.

Half of the two thousand soldiers of Liangcheng State were infantry, but now they were all accompanied by horses. The horses were running at a moderate pace, and the infantrymen were holding the saddles with their hands, getting on and off the horses from two different directions, the left and right.

Obviously, they were practicing cavalry skills. They didn't necessarily want to be cavalrymen, but they wanted to master riding skills. After all, it would be hard to fight on the grassland without riding a horse. There was no one around for dozens or hundreds of miles, so how could they travel without riding a horse?

Moreover, this is a place with relatively good water and grass. If it were a relatively dry desert grassland, the infantry would just be waiting to die if they couldn't ride horses.

Shi Yijian had been seeking advice on how to fight a war for several years and knew all this very well.

Next to the Liangcheng National Army is the newly formed troops.

They usually practiced in small groups of 1,000 people. Needless to say, they were not familiar with each other before, so now they were put together to know each other's abilities and temperaments, so as to better cooperate in the fight.

In the center of the battlefield, the Grand Protector of Shanyu Mansion, Wang Que'er, stood on a high platform and occasionally issued an order. Only at this time would the various thousand-man teams cooperate with each other and practice tactics.

In fact, these people have a very good foundation. They are excellent in riding and archery. Some of them are strong and can directly wear heavy armor and charge into the formation.

If Shao Xun had recruited soldiers in the Central Plains, he would have spent a lot of "wasted money" just to train them in riding and archery in the past few years, and they might not be as skilled as the people in front of him.

"Shi Yijian." Yuan Zhen suddenly stood up, walked up to him, and said softly: "When I was a child, you always bullied me, slapped me, and pushed me in the snow. I was very angry at that time, and I wanted to find a knife to stab you. Later, when I went to Luoyang, my grandfather liked me very much. He coaxed me to sleep, told me stories from history books, and took me out for horseback riding and hunting. I suddenly felt sorry for you and didn't want to take revenge anymore."

After saying this, he took one last look at Shi Yijian and left.

Shi Yijian stood there in a daze, feeling as if he had been slapped seventeen or eighteen times. He felt powerless even when he wanted to get back at someone.

******
The atmosphere in the field became increasingly heated.

Looking from the high platform, a cavalry trotted at first, then slowly sped up and rushed towards the straw man in the distance.

The troops were wearing heavy armor and holding long spears. They slowly formed a relatively dense arrowhead during the charge. In the smoke and dust, the cavalry quickly rushed into the straw man formation. The straw men flew all over the sky as the long spears stabbed them.

The entire charging team ran forward for more than a hundred steps and then slowly stopped. Then, after a short rest, they rushed towards another gathering place of straw men.

After the flush, it’s the third place…

"We have charged four times!" Wang Que'er said softly from the high platform, "The horses can't charge any further, but the men should still have strength."

Of course, that's already pretty good.

Even though they were sitting on horseback, their armor was very heavy and the lance was much thicker and longer than the lances used in the Ming and Qing dynasties. It was also much heavier, so many lance cavalrymen did not carry bows and arrows at all, because they often needed to hold the lance with both hands when charging, stabbing, thrusting, smashing, and sweeping, which made it difficult to use a bow and arrow.

This kind of thing requires one to free up one hand to hold it even when marching; it cannot be hung on a horse or carried on the back because it is too heavy and affects the body's balance.

"Change their horses and keep charging," Shao Xun ordered.

After the order was passed down, the herdsmen led the horses into the field, took away the sweaty and exhausted war horses, and replaced them with new horses for the cavalrymen who were also sweating profusely.

A new round of charge begins...

As the sun was setting, Shao Xun rode into the arena on horseback, and the soldiers sitting on the ground all turned their eyes to him.

"Where is the warrior who charged more than twenty times before being exhausted?" Shao Xun asked.

Da Xi Heruo, the general of the Dai Kingdom who guards the north, followed behind him and asked loudly in Xianbei language.

After a while, a man stepped out, walked in front of Shao Xun, and bowed to the ground.

"What's your name?" Shao Xun helped him up and asked.

"It's really thin."

Shao Xun was stunned. He still knew some Xianbei words. Isn’t "Kebozhen" the name of the gatekeeper?

Da Xi Heruo asked carefully and then answered: "Your Majesty, this man is from the Pugu clan of the Pu tribe. Because of his strong appearance, amazing strength and good looks, he is a guard at the gate of Xinping. He is of humble origin, just a shepherd boy, with no name and no one knows his age. The villagers just call him 'Ke Bozhen'."

This person's origin is so lowly to the core that he doesn't even have a proper name.

"Give him the name 'Pugu Zhongchen' and grant him the title of fifth-rank cavalry commander." Shao Xun ordered.

The personal guards immediately brought the official uniform, seal, military cap, and sword.

Da Xi Heruo looked at this man with some envy. He might not be able to get a fifth-rank rank even if he went to Liangdi to be an official. From this, he also realized a problem. This army would most likely not be disbanded after the war, nor would it be returned to the nobles of the various tribes.

After calming down, Da Xi Heruo translated it.

When Pu Gu Zhongchen heard this, he was shocked. Looking at the official uniforms, swords, and seals, he actually did a funny gesture: he rubbed his eyes, as if he couldn't believe it!

When others saw this, they burst into laughter.

Shao Xun also smiled, reached out and pulled off the riding cap on Ke Bozhen's head, and put the martial arts cap on him.

Pu Gu Zhongchen subconsciously reached out to support him, then suddenly fell to his knees on the ground, crying loudly, and saying something while crying.

The laughter slowly died down, and everyone looked at him with sympathy.

Da Xi Heruo explained in a low voice: "His sister was given to a close friend by the master's family. We don't know whether she is alive or dead. This is the only relative he has left."

"Send a message to Pugulu to find Kebozhen's sister. If he still can't find her in his tribe, I will make him pay." Shao Xun ordered immediately.

Tong Qianjin took the order and left.

Da Xi Heruo was very good at handling things and repeated it in Xianbei language.

When the nearby soldiers heard this, they couldn't help but cheer.

They didn't know what they were cheering for, they just felt happy, maybe it made the tribal nobles busy and sweaty and happy. Or maybe, they didn't have to worry about being bullied by the tribal nobles anymore.

"Gather the people who have charged the most times today, and organize them into a 'horizontal charging camp' with a maximum of 1,000 people. Equip them with fine armor and long spears, and have the cavalry commander Pu Gu Zhongchen lead them."

This was the second captain appointed.

The first one was Balie who killed two birds with one stone. He was also granted the title of Cavalry Commandant and the best archers on horseback were assigned to form an independent camp of one thousand men, called the "Eagle Shooting Camp".

In fact, we also practiced an event in the morning, mainly wrestling.

After the battle was over, a thousand fighters were organized into a camp called "Zhenwu Camp", which was led by the man who defeated the Liu Han family.

This person's background is not low. He has been to Huainan and was able to lead about a hundred people in the Po Liu Han tribe. However, this time he is leading a thousand people, and they are elite troops at that, which is considered a leap forward.

As Shao Xun appointed officers and distributed rewards one by one, the army had gradually gotten out of the control of the tribal nobles.

To these grassland herdsmen, Shao Xun was a complete outsider. He didn't care about the complicated relationships within the tribe, didn't care about the noble or humble origins, and didn't consider the political influence of the tribe. He only looked at the ability. If they were talented, he would be promoted, and if they were capable, they would be given an official position.

Because it is a newly formed army, there are many vacancies for official positions and there are opportunities to advance rapidly, so one or two hundred people will defy fate and gain opportunities that ordinary people can hardly imagine.

These 10,000 new troops may have some reservations about attacking their former benefactors now, but after a few more years, the situation will be different and they will show no mercy.

In the next ten days, Shao Xun led his men to repel the frost again. During the day, he was training the army and adjusting the officer configuration.

On the tenth day of July, a report came from Dongmugen Mountain: the Baba tribe (Changsun tribe) migrated northward, and no one knew where they were going.

On July 12, as another batch of food arrived, Shao Xun left Wang Que'er behind to guard the rear, and led his own troops, Yicong, Luoyan, Youzhou Tuqidu, the new army, Liangcheng national army, Pingcheng guards, part of the Wuzhou and Gaoliu town troops, and troops from various tribes, totaling about 60,000 people, to pursue.

Sixty thousand cavalrymen are not a small number on the grassland, but they are also not unheard of. However, among them there will be many immature teenagers, gray-haired old people, or women with fat faces.

The one led by Shao Xun was different. It was very rare to have 60,000 people with such fine equipment and such high quality.

Sixty thousand elite cavalrymen rushed towards the direction of the Baba tribe like a group of hungry wolves.

(End of this chapter)