Bai Sunizhi looked at the fire, as if he had forgotten what Li Hong had asked him. After a long while, Bai Sunizhi looked at Li Hong and said sincerely, "I hope Your Highness can take good care of her, but it is her blessing to be able to follow Your Highness."
"You say one thing and mean another..." Li Hong felt so comfortable being warmed by the firelight that he stretched lazily.
The earth suddenly began to shake, as if he had touched something by stretching.
"What's that sound?" Zheluogulu stood up suddenly and looked at the night in the distance.
From the actions just now, he didn't seem tired at all. Not only that, he even looked a little excited.
Bai Sunizhi's eyes also lit up, with a glimmer of hope, and he couldn't help but look behind him as the earth shook.
Li Hong's expression turned cold. He knew without anyone telling him that this was the vibration caused by the camel stepping on the ground when it ran.
At this moment, even the little wolf Bai Qi looked alert, his bright eyes rolling around, staring closely at the night ahead.
A whistle suddenly sounded over the camp, followed by a calm and cold shout: "Be on guard...!"
...
...
Two hundred guards appeared silently and fully armed around Li Hong, holding bows and crossbows and swords at their waists. Their black armor flashed a cold light under the firelight.
The solemn and murderous aura that soared into the sky shocked Bai Sunizhi and Zhe Luo at the same time. These two hundred people should not be underestimated. Looking at each of their calm and fearless faces and cold and ruthless eyes, you could tell that these two hundred people were definitely an iron-blooded army.
From the beginning till now, Li Hong has not even looked in the direction of the sound. However, at some point, a sword appeared in Li Hong's hand, which he was slowly drawing out of its sheath. The cold blade was flashing with an intimidating cold light, which was particularly eye-catching under the light of the fire.
"It is said that there is a group of bandits who ride camels in the desert. They have been robbing merchants along both sides of the Peacock River, so they are called the Peacock Bandits by the merchants. Could they be the ones we met today?" Li Hong was very calm, a calmness that was beyond his age.
This made Bai Sunizhi's eyes, which were originally filled with a hint of brightness, suddenly dim.
Ze Luo looked at Li Hong in a daze. He couldn't believe that this prince of the Tang Dynasty, who was only in his teens, knew everything about the Western Regions. The Peacock Thieves were the most mysterious thieves in the Western Regions, and few people knew their background until now.
"Should... probably, they come and go without a trace, and they are vicious. They not only rob merchants of their goods, but sometimes they also kill all the merchants together. So although their name is beautiful, they are not easy to deal with. Your Highness, please run away quickly. Leave this to me." Zhe Luo listened to the deafening sound getting closer, and his tone became more and more excited.
He knew better than anyone that the reason this gang of thieves could come and go without a trace was because Loulan City and Tubo had been secretly protecting them all along, and the goods they obtained had to be divided equally with Loulan or Tubo.
"Just you?" Li Hong glanced at him.
Ze Luo looked at Li Hong's casual glance, as if afraid of being seen through, and quickly shifted his gaze and said, "Your Highness, they are not only cruel and ruthless, but more importantly, they have a huge number of people, as many as 2,000."
Ze Luo was so excited that he forgot why he knew it so clearly. The Peacock Thieves were a mysterious group of thieves in the Western Regions, but he knew it so clearly that it was hard for people not to be suspicious.
"Why do you know it so clearly?" Li Hong stood up. Xia Zhi and Xiao Xue took out Li Hong's armor and were helping Li Hong take off his fur coat and put on the armor.
Everyone, including Xiaoxue, looked calm and natural, showing that they didn't care.
It seemed that no one took the camel caravan, whose shadows could already be seen, seriously.
Li Hong slung the scabbard in his hand over his left waist, then took the crossbow handed over by Banmei and slung it over his right waist.
Just as Li Hong got himself ready, Hua Meng and Mang Zhong appeared beside Li Hong fully armed, and then the four Xia Zhi women disappeared into the tent.
"Loulan has always been governed and managed by themselves. The wind is not strong tonight, so we can go in and tell the lawless to make a quick decision." Li Hong glanced at Bai Sunizhi, then looked at Zhe Luo who was confused, smiled and said, "The Peacock River is beautiful, but it is just this river. As for the thieves, they will tarnish the beautiful name of the Peacock River, so there is no need for them to exist."
"Do you think you can kill all the Peacock Bandits?" Zhe Luo looked unconvinced, and his expression and temperament were full of contempt.
Even Bai Sunizhi slowly stood up, and his family hurried out of the tent, looking at the huge black clouds in the haze with panic.
The camel caravan was not moving fast, but if two thousand camels were running at full speed, the overwhelming force would be daunting, a powerful oppressive force, like a dark cloud pressing down on the land, making it hard to breathe.
"Zhe Luo, your wishful thinking is going to fail. And you, Bai Sunizhi, don't think I don't know that both of you are hoping that this camel caravan can save you. But Bai Sunizhi, you don't even think about it. Even if you are rescued by the Peacock Pirates, can you really restore your country? Distant water cannot quench immediate thirst." Li Hong took the reins handed over by Mangzhong and immediately jumped on the horse.
At this time, the four women of Xia Zhi in the tent also walked out of the tent fully armed. Each of them was equipped with the same equipment as Li Hong, with swords and bows and crossbows, but they were not equipped with the horse lances that the Tang Dynasty had always equipped.
"Ah...ah..." Screams suddenly rang out in the empty night sky, but the cavalry on Li Hong's side had not yet set out.
"This is..." Ze Luo's face turned pale. He was also an expert in war. When he heard the sound and the noisy and chaotic footsteps of the camel caravan, he knew that the camel caravan had been ambushed.
Li Hong's Iron Pagoda was not a real Iron Pagoda, but it just used someone else's name. In fact, it was composed of 7,000 light cavalry.
Their weapons and equipment were the same as Li Hong's, consisting of swords, bows and crossbows. Only a small number of people were equipped with horse lances for attacking.
In the true sense, this cavalry was actually equipped with reference to the combat equipment of the Mongolian cavalry.
Of the one thousand cavalrymen, one hundred had already quietly hidden in the saxaul bushes on both sides of the river bank when they were setting up camp. This was designed by Li Hong when he was training the Iron Pagoda. Everything was done in order to respond to the enemy's attack on the camp so that a small number of people could be used to stop the enemy's attack and buy time for the soldiers in the tents.
As screams rang out one after another, the empty night suddenly became a little creepy, and the pungent smell of blood began to spread in the air.
"Prepare for the attack." Wu Ke's voice seemed very abrupt in the night sky filled with screams.
But it was more like a thunderclap. The fully armed Iron Pagodas were now in a triangle formation. About five breaths after the voice of Wu Wu fell, they suddenly burst out like thunder in the night sky: "Kill!"
Suddenly, arrows rained down in the night sky not far in front of Li Hong and others. The arrows cut through the night sky, making a sound that sounded extremely strange at the moment.
As the rain of arrows shot towards the camel caravan, the already panicked bandits on the caravan only began to draw their bows and arrows. However, the range of their bows and arrows was far inferior to the crossbows in the hands of the Iron Pagoda soldiers.
When the second wave of shooting by the Iron Pagoda ended in the dark, the camel caravan's arrows fell weakly on the ground in front of the front row of soldiers of the Iron Pagoda.
"Shoot... Charge." Wutan was the spearhead of the triangle formation, with a terrifying murderous intent flashing in his eyes. As soon as the word "charge" came out of his mouth, he immediately raised the crossbow in his hand, and together with the other three rows of cavalry behind him, he pulled the trigger of the crossbow, and then immediately rushed towards the camel caravan like lightning.
The departure of Wutan and others created space and distance for the cavalry behind them to shoot. They aimed their crossbows at the camel caravan again and fired another round of shots. Then, just like Wutan just now, they immediately split into two groups and rushed towards the camel caravan.
As they approached the camel caravan, they relied on their flexibility and maneuverability like Mongolian cavalry and instantly surrounded the chaotic camel caravan in the center. The war horses roamed in the chaos of the camel caravan, and the bows and crossbows seemed to have eyes, only shooting the people in the middle of the camel's hump and not killing the camels.
Each Iron Pagoda man was equipped with sixty arrows. Nine hundred of them roamed around the camel caravan, not engaging in close combat with them, but moving around and shooting. As the people on the camel's humps fell to the ground, the camel's hooves were like heavy hammers, trampling on their masters wantonly.
The screams and wails made the open space of the Peacock River seem to have turned into a territory in an instant. As the people in the middle of the camel caravan rushed out on their camels, before they could get close to the Iron Pagoda crossbowmen roaming around, they were pierced by a horse lance holding a lightning bolt that flew out from behind the crossbowman at lightning speed and instantly pierced the heart of the person on the camel's hump.
The tacitly coordinated tactics, clean and neat movements, the elusive arrows, the ruthless and bloodthirsty horse lances, which were a way of fighting summed up from actual combat on the grassland, suddenly made the camel caravan of 2,000 people lose its combat effectiveness.
Wufawutian looked at the camel caravan that was surrounded in the center. It was now overwhelmed and in disarray. He quickly hung the crossbow on the right side of the horse's back. The redesigned sword in his hand began to flash with murderous aura the moment it was unsheathed.
"kill!"
As Wufa and Wutan roared at each other, it was as if a thunderclap struck the night sky again, and in an instant, Tiefutu rushed into the camel caravan like a wolf.
If you look closely at the sword in his hand, you will find that it has a slight curve and is more resilient than before. Every time the sword cuts through the air, it brings out a handful of blood, as if snowflakes are floating on a cold winter night.
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