The warhorse came galloping, and the man on the horse jumped off, ran forward a few steps, and shouted loudly: "Sir!"
"What's going on? Why did you come back now? Where are the others? Did you see Miss Yu?"
"Sir, we encountered robbers on the road, and all our brothers were robbed by them!"
"What?" Chu Qiao and Xue Zhiyuan shouted at the same time.
Then, Chu Qiao asked in disbelief: "What kind of bandits are so arrogant? There are more than 500 of you, how could you be robbed by bandits?"
"Sir, although we have a lot of people, the other side has more. They have more than 7,000 people."
"Nonsense!" Xue Zhiyuan shouted coldly, "You guys are careless and you put the blame on the bandits. There are rebels everywhere in Yanbei now, where did the more than 7,000 bandits come from? This is clearly an attempt to shirk responsibility!"
The guard raised his sword-like eyebrows and said righteously: "Master Xue, although we brothers are not talented, we are also elite soldiers who have followed your highness in the battles. Even if we die in battle, we will not frown. If anything I said today is false, I will be pierced by thousands of arrows and die a miserable death!"
Chu Qiao took a deep breath and asked in a deep voice: "How are our people now? What do those bandits want? Can we kill them?"
The guard immediately perked up and quickly replied, "No, no one was hurt. They were ambushed and only a few of our brothers were injured. They were very fierce at first and threatened us to pass on a message to them. Later, when they heard that we were your subordinates, their attitude improved greatly."
Chu Qiao was stunned and asked, "What?"
"Sir, those people don't know who we are. They kidnapped our people just to find someone to pass on a message. They said they wanted to see you."
"Want to see me?"
"Yes."
Chu Qiao frowned and asked, "Who is their leader?"
"That man is over 30 years old and fought very bravely. It's obvious that he is not an ordinary bandit. He looks like a soldier who has received formal training. The quality of their entire team is very good. Their individual combat capabilities are very advanced. Their weapons and equipment are complete, but they are not wearing formal military uniforms. They refused to reveal their identities, only saying that they had no ill intentions. As long as you see them, you will know who they are."
Chu Qiao frowned and pondered for a while, then suddenly said, "Prepare the horses, let's go meet him."
"You're crazy!" Xue Zhiyuan grabbed her hand.
Although the two had always been in a hostile relationship, they were comrades standing in the same trench after all. The man said in a deep voice: "Leave the city now, do you want to die?"
Chu Qiao turned to look at him and said with a serious expression: "My subordinates are in the hands of the other party."
"So what? Can you save them all by yourself?"
"Does General Xue want to send me troops? Not too many, five thousand will be enough."
Xue Zhiyuan was suddenly speechless. He was just a vanguard general. Cao Mengtong now had to preserve the strength of the Second Army. Let alone 5,000 people, he couldn't even mobilize 500 people.
Chu Qiao snorted coldly, climbed onto the warhorse, followed the guards, and shouted coldly: "Go!"
The warhorse raised its hooves and galloped away out of the city.
Xue Zhiyuan raised his eyebrows, and just at this moment a soldier came over with a horse. He grabbed the horse, followed Chu Qiao, and galloped towards the west gate. The north wind was howling, and heavy snow was falling like swan feathers. Everything around was white, and you couldn't even tell the directions.
However, even in such a bitterly cold night, a stream of people that seemed to have no end was slowly moving like a long dragon. The wind was like a knife sprinkled with salt, roaring fiercely and cutting people's faces. They could no longer open their eyes, but this did not dampen their fighting enthusiasm. The people of Yanbei, upon receiving the conscription order from General Cao of the Second Army to defend their territory, rushed to Beishuo City with their homemade scimitars and rode the strongest horses in their homes to offer their loyalty for the Datong they dreamed of.
This is a tough nation, and the people living here have been skilled in archery and horse riding since childhood. Chu Qiao knows that with a little training, a powerful and unparalleled army will be born on this land. But now, looking at these confident men who were singing Yanbei war songs in the wind and snow, she was filled with sadness. She wanted to stop them, but only got some contemptuous looks. Someone saw her and Xue Zhiyuan running westward, spitted fiercely, and shouted, "Deserter!"
"Sir, let's go quickly." The personal guard left behind by Yan Xun turned around and said anxiously.
At this moment, Chu Qiao raised her eyebrows slightly, pulled the reins hard, and the horse's hooves stopped suddenly. The soldier ran more than twenty steps before he stopped and turned back to ask, "Sir, what happened?"
Chu Qiao frowned, tilted her ear, turned her head and said to Xue Zhiyuan beside her: "Did you hear that?"
Boom! Boom! Boom! A rumbling sound like muffled thunder came slowly, growing louder and louder, as if it was coming from beneath the ground, through the soles of people's feet, and climbing up from the spine.
Xue Zhiyuan raised his eyebrows and immediately jumped off his horse. The young officer ran up the high slope beside him and looked up. In an instant, he was stunned and looked far away to the west, motionless.
Soon, several people who heard the noise also climbed up and stood on the snowy field.
Silence, deathly silence. Soon, someone turned around like in a nightmare, looked around, stretched out his hand, pointed to the west and asked: "Is there an army? Is it our army?"
A large sound of horse hooves came from the west, and a faint black shadow appeared on the horizon, from a line to a side. There were huge numbers, perhaps thousands of them, and the sound was like thunder, as they galloped from the distant Sunset Mountains!
"Run!" A sharp female voice suddenly sounded.
Everyone was startled and turned their heads to look. They saw a woman in military uniform sitting on horseback. She had drawn her sword and was holding it in her hand. She pointed to the west and shouted, "It's the army of Daxia! Run! Go to the direction of Beishuo!"
The crowd was in a panic, but soon someone started to question, "Why is Daxia's army in the inland of Yanbei?"
"Yes," someone echoed, "They are all outside Beishuo Pass!"
However, it was too late. The familiar way of controlling the horses and the familiar way of slashing and charging showed that they were the border guards of Daxia who had received formal training.
Chu Qiao's face was pale, and the palms holding the knife were almost sweaty. Who are these people? Why were they able to break through Beishuo Pass and appear in the heart of Yanbei, where there is no regular army? What would happen if they were allowed to rush to the rear of Yanbei?
In an instant, all thoughts flashed through her mind. Chu Qiao raised her sword and shouted, "I am Chu Qiao, a senior officer of the Yanbei General Staff. Everyone listen to my orders!"
The howling wind blew her voice away in the north wind. All she saw ahead was a mass of dark shadows, rushing towards her in a dense charging formation. There were tens of thousands of them, overwhelming like a tidal wave, as powerful as a storm!
"How is that possible?"
A scream suddenly broke out from the crowd. The men from northern Yan who had traveled thousands of miles to respond to the call and join the army to defend their country were suddenly attacked by the enemy and immediately panicked.
“Run!”
It was too late to run now. In the disintegrating escape, she would only be strangled madly. Chu Qiao turned around and shouted loudly: "Don't run! Go intercept them!"
However, no one paid any attention to her. The guards rushed forward, grabbed her reins and shouted, "My lord, run!"
"We must notify Beishuo Headquarters immediately!"
"My Lord! It's too late!"
As if to confirm her words, the charge to kill the enemy sounded loudly. There was no doubt that it was the charge slogan of the Daxia regular army.
The frantic hooves of the horses suddenly rushed over and caught up with the group of panicked civilians in a flash. The blades were unsheathed in an instant, like lightning. Before the people of Yanbei could come to their senses, they saw a flash of white light and blood gushing out before their eyes. The head was immediately separated from the neck and flew into the air. The blood in the cavity spurted out and sprinkled on the white snow!
In close combat, under the enemy's fast horse speed and precise and ruthless swordsmanship, the people of Yanbei had no power to fight back, and they didn't know how to fight back anyway. The sharp screams were completely drowned out by the noise of horses' hooves. They fell off their horses one by one and were trampled by hundreds of horses' hooves.
Chu Qiao's eyes turned red. The sudden encounter with the enemy made her lose her composure. Under such a fierce attack, her personal role was minimal. A young man was riding a horse and running in front. He was chopped off the neck by the enemy who caught up with him from behind. Blood splattered and sprayed on Chu Qiao's fur coat. She stabbed the Xia soldier's chest with a sword. The sword's light was bright and brought a streak of blood.
"Xue Zhiyuan! Go back immediately! Notify the base camp!"
There were more than a thousand cavalrymen in this team, all dressed in the regular military uniform of Daxia with a blue background and white stripes. They were busy chasing the fleeing civilians, and for a moment no one noticed that there were a few fresh troops here who could fight back. Xue Zhiyuan was surrounded by three Xia soldiers. Chu Qiao swung her sword to rescue him and shouted, "Go!"
"Let a woman cover me? I can't do it!" Xue Zhiyuan is indeed an elite soldier who has experienced hundreds of battles. He is agile and quick without any fancy moves. He just raises his sword and chops off the head of a Xia soldier with one blow. His movements are as swift as a tiger.
Chu Qiao frowned, and suddenly reached out to tear off her fur coat, threw it to the ground, and shouted on her horse, "Shameless scoundrel! Massacre of civilians! You deserve to be killed!" After that, she raised her sword high and resolutely rushed towards the Xia army's formation.
"Sir!" When the guard saw this, his eyes almost turned bloodshot. He ran forward and followed Chu Qiao.
The two men roared and charged towards the army of thousands of people. The scene looked as ridiculous as a cartoon. However, no one could laugh at this moment. The officers and soldiers of Daxia seemed to have just discovered Chu Qiao at this time. Seeing her uniform, someone shouted, "There's an official here!"
In an instant, the encirclement from all sides surged up like a tide. Compared with those insignificant civilians, the significance represented by an official of the Yanbei Army was extraordinary.
Xue Zhiyuan was stunned. Seeing the soldiers who besieged him abandon him in an instant, he felt the blood rushing in his chest. He knew that Chu Qiao used her life to buy him time to escape, not for the so-called comradeship, but for the millions of soldiers and civilians in Beishuo City!
In the howling north wind, his eyes turned red, he roared, turned around and galloped towards Beishuo City.
He ran too fast. If he had waited a little longer, perhaps he would have seen some different pictures. But fate is so bizarre. The moment he turned around, an iron-gray ink line appeared again in the distant northwest. The earth was shaking, the wind was howling, and bloodthirsty murderous aura was floating in the wind, filling every inch of the snowfield. In the cold moonlight, the team dressed in a variety of casual clothes came like a hurricane sweeping the earth, overwhelming and sweeping in!
(End of this volume)
Volume 6: The Sky of Qinghai