Before they knew it, the sun had set. The Xixia people followed the agreement and left the mountain pass directly. Yelu Yudu also forced himself to put his thoughts aside and came down to gather his people.

However, at this moment, a bolt from the blue hit him again.

"General..." The trusted guard in charge of counting the number of people came forward to report, his lips trembling. "Ten people are missing! All of Tai Shi Nu's people are missing."

Yelu Yudu was in a daze and instinctively fled towards Hengshan Pass. His confidants hurriedly followed him. However, after passing Hengshan Pass, the confidants counted the number of people again and found that there were more than ten people missing. It was probably because they did not follow him at all.

Up to this point, the morale of the Khitans was getting lower and lower. It was conceivable that if Yelu Yudu did not boost morale, the team would soon fall apart.

"General!"

Things happened faster than expected. The sun hadn't even completely set yet. On the north side of Hengshan Pass, facing the obviously colder wind, someone took the initiative to question Yu Du, and this time the leader was a senior officer in the team. "My family is in Hedong, and I followed you here without knowing why..."

Yelu Yudu stared at the man in the afterglow, but said nothing.

The man seemed to feel a little embarrassed, so he let it go and continued, "But this matter is not your fault. I knew what Yelu Mawu's confidant said at the ferry that day. It's just our bad luck. But we are going to Khatun City to find King Dashi. It's so far, and there's such a wide desert in the middle. The Xixia people won't let us pass through. How can we go? Besides, Tai Shi Nu is most likely to go directly to the Jurchens to inform on us. How can we have the opportunity to go to the northeast? I'm afraid we will be blocked by the Jurchens when we reach the Yellow River?"

This question hit the nail on the head. Yelu Yudu came to his senses and had no way to defend himself. He could only avoid the question: "Saba, what do you mean? Can't you be more frank?"

"What I mean is, since it has come to this, we might as well just go our separate ways and let us go seek refuge with the Xixia people. After all, the Xixia people are concerned about you, General, not us, their subordinates. We are good at cavalry, so why shouldn't the Xixia people allow me to be an iron hawk and eat a meal in the army?" Saba said while looking around behind him.

Seeing Saba's signal, more than a dozen of his companions started to make a commotion together. Slowly, seventy or eighty people responded one after another, and then stood behind Saba, directly confronting Yu Du's men behind him.

The light gradually dimmed, and both sides were worried that the situation would become unclear after dark, so the atmosphere gradually became uneasy. Some people even began to draw their swords and curse at each other. The two sides faced each other with swords, and the atmosphere was tense and uneasy.

Yelu Yudu stood between the two teams, thought for a moment, and suddenly sighed. He raised his hand to stop his confidant, then walked forward with empty hands to Sa Bayan who was holding the knife and said, "In that case, you can go! Take half of the supplies brought from Pingrong Village... But please consider that we have been together for many years and go directly north to Hongzhou City. Don't spy on our route, and don't reveal our itinerary."

Saba and other rebellious soldiers only wanted to survive, so they were a little surprised when they heard this. However, since Yu Du promised not to fight, why would they stay? So several rebellious leaders discussed for a while, and finally took a few supplies, bowed respectfully to Yu Du from a distance, and then gathered a crowd of 180 people and headed due north.

Not only that, then, I saw him sitting at the mountain pass without moving, and simply did not light a bonfire. He just let the rest of his subordinates follow Saba and others and flee. It was not until two or three o'clock in the morning that a confidant came to report that there were only twenty or thirty riders left, and no one had fled for a long time... He wanted to ask the general to decide whether they could light a bonfire and sleep for a while, otherwise the cold wind from the north of the mountain would be so severe that they would probably get sick from the cold.

Yu Du seemed to come alive at this moment, and finally responded in the night wind: "At this point, how can we talk about making a decision? Pu Da, don't light the bonfire, let everyone gather together, surround the horses outside and the people inside, and say that I have something to discuss with you brothers."

After hearing the seriousness of Yu Du's words, the confidants did not dare to neglect and quickly gathered the remaining people. After the people and horses were surrounded, Yu Du spoke again: "Until now, there are still so many brothers who have not abandoned us. Yu Du is grateful. Even if I should have died, I would fight hard to find a place for you brothers to stay before I die... Moreover, we are really not at the end of our rope."

These words were somewhat abrupt. Even though the remaining people were all loyal to Yu Du, there was some commotion around them.

"Brothers, I have been terrified since I crossed the Yellow River. It was not until the situation became unsolvable that I relaxed and figured out some things... You said, Yelu Ma Wulao had long been disgusted with me because of the issue of military power, and he was loyal to the Jurchens. How could he be so kind as to send me across the river and persuade me to surrender to Xixia?"

There was a great uproar all around, and Pu Da could not help but ask, "Did Yelu Ma Wu deceive us? Does the Fourth Prince not want to kill us?"

"Yes and no." Yu Du's voice was slow but gradually became stronger. "How could Yelu Ma Wu have the guts to frame me like this? Don't forget that in these years in Hedong, we have been under surveillance every day, first by Xi Yin, then by Balisu... If it was just Ma Wu who cheated to harm me, how could he hide it from Balisu? How could Taiyuan let me cross the river openly under the banner of entertaining the troops without questioning or stopping me?"

The people around were all low-ranking officers, who had no idea about these things. When they heard what he said, they felt that it made sense, but at the same time, their minds were in a mess and they still couldn't figure out the pros and cons of it.

Yu Du was really ready to reveal his true feelings at this moment, but he did not hesitate and continued to answer frankly in the cold wind: "I can't think of the specific reason for the moment, but the one who can instruct Balisu and Ma Wu should be Wanyan Wushu who should have arrived in Taiyuan by now. Wanyan Wushu made an unnecessary move. Maybe he wanted to use me as a stone to test the waters of Xixia or Huo Nu, or maybe he just wanted to force me away with a legitimate reason... It doesn't matter, because he came from Yanjing and gave instructions on the way, so it is impossible for him to know all the inside stories here, so he must not have thought that we just got the specific information that King Dashi has established a foothold in the west of Xixia."

My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It’s even more exciting later!