Beichen Sword Sect's Headmaster's Secret Records

Chapter 89: The Riders
Qiao Fa is not the kind of brave man who would go to the mountain of tigers even though he knows there are tigers there. He is the shopkeeper of Qianshengtong and a businessman.

Merchants have to weigh the risks and benefits. Not to mention that the refugees are blocking the way outside the Wei Ze Pass. Even if you force your way out, you will run into the Kan army heading south. Wouldn't it be like throwing so many goods into the mouth of a tiger? Only fools would do a losing business.

So Qian Shengtong's convoy turned around and returned home, escorted by two disabled and blind Sword Sect disciples. Qiao Fa took Tiedan and three broken-arm Sword Sect disciples with him to conduct reconnaissance.

Well, after all, Qiao Fa is not only a businessman, but also a lay disciple of the Xuanmen, a Jindan cultivator. In theory, making money from business is his sideline, and gathering information is his main job. Now that he has encountered such a major event as the war between the vassal states, he naturally has to investigate it carefully.

Of course, according to Qiao Fa's idea, he should go and come back quickly, but Tiedan was not willing to go back to the mountain, and the other three people from the Sword Sect also felt that if they tried again, they would win and had the advantage, so they would not let Tiedan get away.

So the group of five people traveled light and rode fast, passing through Weize Pass.

"Sir! Please let us pass!"

"Stop talking nonsense! The king has issued an order! No one will be allowed to pass without a pass!"

"You bastard king! He was the first one to flee to the capital! He left us to die!"

"How dare you! How dare you slander the king! Shoot him!"

“Ahhh!” “Murder!”

"What a shameless official! He ran away when the Tartars from the north came! He is a worthless person who only harms the people!"

"Assholes! I think you must be spies sent by the Kan Kingdom! You are trying to sneak in! Come on! Shoot! Shoot!"

“Ahhhh!” “Help!”

The guards at Weize Pass fired arrows and killed dozens of people, which temporarily dispersed the crowd outside the pass. But the crowd did not dare to leave and continued to gather outside the pass.

After all, if he could escape to Qianzhou through the pass, it would at least be a way to survive. However, from Weize Pass to the south, it was still hundreds of miles away to Yedu, Gen State. There was no place to defend, no place to hide. The army of Kan State was coming from behind with three horses per person. There was no way to escape.

So these people still hold on to a fluke mentality, hoping that the commander of Weize Pass will suddenly have a change of heart and let them in, or simply abandon the pass and escape. This way, everyone will have a way out.

"The guards will not abandon the pass and flee."

"what?"

Qiao Fa spent some money to bribe the soldiers guarding the gate to open it and let them out.

Tiedan looked at the majestic pass built against the mountain behind him, glanced at the soldiers in strong armor and drawing powerful bows, and pointed at their military flags.

"These are not conscripted soldiers from the vassal states, but the immortal soldiers of the Northern Guard. Fleeing without a fight and losing the pass is a capital crime punishable by the death of all the troops, and the entire clan in the rear will be confiscated and beheaded.

What's more, the terrain of this pass is dangerous, it is high up, the mountain roads are narrow and steep, and the city defenses are strong. As long as we close the pass and hold on, it won't be difficult to hold out for a month or so.

The Kan soldiers came south to raid the valley, and this place is not on the main road back north, so no one would bother to attack the city. At most, they would send a small army to conduct guerrilla warfare nearby and monitor the movements from Jingxing at any time. "

The Sword Sect disciples couldn't help but look at each other in surprise when this boy who had been silent all the way suddenly became so talkative.

Qiao Fa also noticed it sensitively.
"Friend Tiedao, are you familiar with military affairs?"

Tiedan didn't answer either. He rode his horse forward, circled around where the refugees gathered, and then rode back.

"There aren't many women and children among the refugees. Most of them are deserters who have just been defeated. They must have been defeated in a recent battle nearby, so they abandoned their weapons and armor, and used the nearby people as human shields to escape all the way here. By this calculation, I'm afraid the pursuers can't be too far away."

Hearing that there might be pursuers nearby, Qiao Fa said cautiously,

"Then what do we do now?"

Tiedan looked at him.
"What do you want to do? Aren't you going to go out for reconnaissance?"

Qiao Fa scratched his head.
"I wanted to find refugees first, or go to nearby towns to ask about the situation in Gen and the military strength of Kan. But if there is a large army around, it would be too dangerous..."

Tiedan Road,
"It's not dangerous. If you want to see it, let's go and see it."

Qiao was stunned.
"Go and see? See the Kan army? Is it really okay?"

Iron Egg,

"It's okay. I've been touching the Northern Soldier's sentry since I was a child."

Qiao Fa admires,

"My friend Tiedao was once a scout. He is a very capable person... Shall we go?"

Iron Egg,

"Do you have a map? I've never been to this area before and I don't know the way."

"hiss……"

Qiao Fa took a breath of cold air.
"You can be a scout if you don't know the way?"

Iron Egg,

"There is no road on the grassland. Just follow the horse manure and water plants to find it. You can draw a picture of a large city nearby and point out the approximate distance and direction."

Although he had some doubts, Tiedan was at least more useful than the three people who grew up in the mountains. Qiao Fa often traveled for business and knew the terrain nearby, so after asking the refugees briefly, they rode their horses all the way to the northeast, and within forty miles they encountered the Kan army.

This was a scout team of nine men and twenty-seven horses, probably doing outer reconnaissance. They had just massacred a small village, killing all the men, women, old and young, and had chopped off their heads and piled them up at the entrance of the village to form a memorial. They had also cut off their left ears and put them in pockets, and had tied bags of them to the horses' tails.

At this moment, three of them were on guard duty, three were relaxing in the house, and three were cooking. They put the dry food they had looted from the village into the pot, picked out some tender skin and meat from the corpses, cut open the internal organs to make a trough, and fed the horses with the heart, liver, and internal organs and some wheat fodder. Tiedan lay on the hill and took a look, and said coldly,
"What are you doing?"

The three Sword Sect disciples ignored him and used hand gestures to release their flying swords.

The Sword Sect never needs to explain why they want to kill people. Maybe they are simply unhappy to see an entire village being massacred.

Tiedan sneered.

"These are the Tuqi from the Aolu Plain, the foreign guards who were born in Tartar. They can run as fast as the wind on their horses, and one arrow can blow the head of a wolf apart. Even if you kill nine of them in one breath with your flying swords.

If one of the twenty-seven horses escapes, the entire Kan army will know that we have sneaked in. Within half an hour, they can gather a thousand cavalrymen to encircle and suppress us."

The Sword Sect disciples remained silent and just flew their swords.

Qiao Fa quickly advised,

"Fellow junior brothers, we are just here to investigate the situation..."

"The armies of Kang and Gen started fighting last winter when they defeated Shuofang and were completely annihilated in Liangcheng. The battle lasted for three months.

Duke Zhongshan killed 130,000 soldiers in one go. It is estimated that they were short of food, and now their troops have probably scattered in search of food.

Now in Genzhou, there are at least 100,000 soldiers fighting in the valley, and millions of heads have been chopped off and piled up into a Jingguan."

Tiedan was even more straightforward, he turned around and mounted his horse.
"The soldiers and cavalry of the Kan Kingdom are well-trained, with a sentry every fifteen miles. Now that they have just won a great victory, their vigilance may be relaxed.

If you sneak in through this gap now, you will be able to see the main camp of the Kan army by tonight at the latest."

The Sword Sect disciples were not stupid, so they naturally understood what he was talking about.

Shoot people first, shoot horses, and capture thieves first.

Kill those who started the war and the war will naturally end.

...If it's not over yet, just keep killing them in order until it's over.

After a moment's silence, they retracted their flying swords and mounted their horses.

Qiao Fa was sweating coldly as he looked at the group of people coming out of the mountains.

"You...you are not really going to assassinate Lord Zhongshan?"

No one spoke, they just rode their horses and advanced around the emptied village.

And just as Tiedan said, after only fifteen miles, they arrived at a battlefield.

Tens of thousands of troops were fighting and clashing on the plains of Genzhou, blood and blood were rushing to the sky, and the sound of killing was deafening. The merchants and swordsmen who came out of the mountains had obviously never seen such a scene. Even the brave warriors, facing such a huge battle, the shocking collision, and hundreds of deaths, could not help but turn pale, be terrified, and sweat.

Tiedan had no expression on his face. He watched from a distance for a while, then pointed to the fluttering military flag and showed it to Qiao Fa.

"The Genzhou army was defeated. They were transferred from Dizhou in the south, bringing a large amount of baggage. They probably didn't make it to the battlefield before the Wang army was defeated. So they turned south in a hurry, but the Kan army came too fast and intercepted them outside the city.

The commander of the Gen army reacted quickly and was accompanied by a battalion of elite soldiers, so they were able to use iron chariots to form a battle array and shoot bows and crossbows on the spot, and hold out until now.

But the rest are just a bunch of hastily recruited good-for-nothings. They are in such a mess after only three waves of cavalry attacks. They will be dead when the enemy troops rush over."

Qiao Fa was shocked by the murderous aura of the army and was speechless for a moment.

It was a sword sect disciple with a broken arm who came to his senses first and stared at Tiedan.

"A cavalry? A fierce battle?"

Tiedan did not hide it from them and said frankly,
"After Emperor Wu, the country did not use troops for a long time, the system of government soldiers became corrupted, the rotation of soldiers was often irregular, the guards gradually disappeared, and the number of soldiers was increasing, and the guards could not be provided.

So the Duke of Kan cleared all the recruited soldiers for the imperial guards, abolished the imperial guards in the capital and the outer vassal states, the government soldiers, and the common people, and replaced them with the soldiers of the governors of Kan, who numbered 200,000, called the long guards, who served eight shifts a year, and selected the brave and valiant soldiers who were good at riding and shooting, and called them the "彍骑".

At this time, the earth shook like a landslide, and a large number of cavalry were seen surrounding the carriage formation and galloping counterclockwise.

They set up a sentry with nine people, and about a hundred people guarded a flag. Nine flags formed a battalion, and they organized five battalions into one formation. They gathered three formations and attacked the main army.

He kept rushing to the front of the Gen army and shooting arrows ten steps away. "Bang, bang, bang", the sound of the bowstrings was like thunder, and "whoosh, whoosh", the heavy arrows broke through the wind like javelins.

A hail of arrows came at them, like thunderbolts, tearing flesh and breaking armor, breaking bones. The Turks were like the wind, rolling over the front of the formation like wheels, whirling and galloping away.

This kind of attack does not end in one wave, but with one wave of retreat, two waves of attack, and three waves of preparation, over and over again. The heavy arrows like javelins and heavy spears, wrapped in the sharp edge of the weapon, are shot and smashed like hail.

"To be selected as a cavalry, you must at least be able to stretch left and right, open the Gang Bow twelve times, charge into nine formations in a row, and then change horses to return to Qi to be qualified. If you do this twenty times in a row, even the spear quilts of the guards in the mountain formation will be trampled, and then the fierce soldiers will pounce on you."

Tiedan looked around and pointed to the northeast, where the left wing of the Kan army was lined up, with heavy armored cavalry as immovable as a mountain, like dark clouds and iron mountains.

"The soldiers fought swiftly, and the cavalry rushed forward. When the cavalry had disrupted the enemy's formation and dispersed it, the soldiers who had fought in the battle array came over like a flood, crushing the fleeing soldiers into pieces and trampling them into bloody mud with their cavalry, hammers, and axes. These people could charge into battle on horseback, fight on foot, and could fight all day without stopping in their armor. Even if there were only 3,000 of them, they were enough to cut through 100,000 people."

Looking at the army of Genzhou, just as Tiedan said, it fell apart under the crushing of the cavalry. And the iron wire on the horizon, like a mountain torrent, swept across from the right wing like an iron rod and a heavy hammer, bringing them to the final end.

Qiao Fa was completely stunned. After a long while, he swallowed his saliva and muttered,
"Such a powerful army... I'm afraid that only the cavalry under the command of the general during the reign of Emperor Wu that swept across Yinshan Mountain can resist it..."

Tiedan glanced at him sideways.
"They are the cavalry led by the general."

(End of this chapter)