Chapter 250 The Tragedy of War
Half a month after Yan Shijiu and Zhiluo left, the war horses from Youzhou arrived.
One hundred thousand Tusu war horses galloped across the plains, bringing hope of defeating the enemy.
The morale of the Lion Army soldiers was greatly boosted and they couldn't wait to fight.
In Guying City, the Black Scale Cavalry who had originally defended the city seemed to have foreseen that they would be crushed to the ground, so they simply abandoned Guying City and retreated 800 miles overnight.
The retreat of the Black Scale Cavalry actually gave the Lion Army an opportunity to train its cavalry.
But when the war horses arrived, troublesome affairs also came with them.
Receiving war horses, placing them in stables, providing them with feed and water, reorganizing and registering them, and distributing them in pens...all kinds of trivial tasks followed one after another.
Huo Gannian spread out a list of expenses for transporting horses, and then opened a budget list for raising horses and training cavalry. His eyes went dark and he almost fainted.
Yun Chen's situation isn't much better.
After discussing with Huo Gannian, she agreed that she would be the general of the 100,000 cavalry army in the future.
Who knew that after he volunteered to be a general, the first headache would come.
How to distribute 300,000 Lion Army soldiers and 100,000 war horses?
Each of them is a brave man, determined to fight for his country.
When everyone saw the "new equipment" of war horses, their eyes lit up and they were extremely excited. They couldn't bear to hurt anyone's feelings, so how could they divide them?
Then let the strength speak for itself.
Yun Chen initiated a group competition among the entire army. After more than a month of hard work, he selected 100,000 people, but horse training became a big problem.
The 100,000 Tusu war horses that Yun Zhongjun gave to Yun Chen are a type of fierce horse that is most favored by the nomadic peoples of the northwest.
The horse is strong and fierce, loyal and brave, and will not easily recognize its master.
A horse trainer must be an excellent rider and have great courage and strength to make the horse submit.
Yun Chen and Huo Gannian are masters of horse training, but they cannot train all the horses themselves.
The two tried their best to teach the soldiers the horse training skills, but it still caused chaos.
Sometimes soldiers were kicked by horses, sometimes thrown into mud pits, and sometimes they caught rubella from horse manure...
After much effort, the horse training was barely completed and the war horses were distributed to the soldiers one by one. Each person was responsible for all matters including the feeding and care of his own horse.
In order to distinguish the war horses, numbers were printed on their buttocks, and the soldiers also gave them various names.
The better ones, if they meet a cultured owner, can get a horse with a prestigious name like "Wu Ya", "Xun Feng" or "Che Dian";
The worse ones are those where the horse owners have low education levels and the names they give them are not very nice either.
Therefore, Yun Chen could often hear such shouts in the tent with a look of disgust on his face:
"Luo Dongdong! Bring your Erzhuang to the gathering! Bring Cuihua from next door too!"
"Xunfeng and Niuniu are still eating grass, they will be here soon!"
"Who took my Weiguo's saddle? Give it back to me!"
The generals strongly disagreed with Yun Chen's contempt:
"Boss, do you dare to tell me the name of your most beloved 'water dragon'?"
Yun Chen was embarrassed and didn't want to talk. Rong Yi laughed beside him:
"I know. I saw it when I was registering it! It's called 'Dog Xiaoliu'!"
"Ha ha ha ha--"
After being laughed at by the soldiers, Yun Chen felt a little depressed.
After punching Rong Yi twice, she walked alone to the grassland not far from the camp, which was where the Lion Army now trained and raised horses.
She found a low slope to sit down and looked at the huge grassland in front of her.
The sky is blue, the grass is green, and horses are grazing leisurely in groups. There are few human voices around, only the soft neighing of horses.
She had just sat down for a while when she felt someone approaching and patting her on the back.
She turned her head and saw that it was the water dragon that was approaching her and nudging her with its horse's head, as if to offer her comfort in a very human way.
It’s okay, I like this name very much!
She looked into the horse's eyes, which could clearly see her depressed expression. She felt a little uncomfortable. She hugged the horse's head, put her cheek on its neck, and sighed softly:
"I wrote you 'Xun Xiaoliu', but Rong Yi read it as 'Gou Xiaoliu', so now you are 'Gou Xiaoliu'. I kind of regret calling you Gou Xiaoliu. Every time I call you that, I think of Gou Ge and Xiaoliu. I miss them so much..."
She was almost confused as she spoke, and she didn't know whether she was comforting the dragon in the water or herself:
"That's fine. Gou Ge will always be called 'Gou Ge', and Xiao Liu will always be called 'Xiao Liu'... That's fine..."
Many thoughts arose in her mind.
Gou Ge and Xiao Liu, the two people who once appeared so vividly in her life, have now gradually faded away.
But this color will fade, but it will never disappear. Every time I think of it, it will be filled with blood and become bright red again.
She remembered the method Huo Gannian had taught her before, that is, if she wanted to miss someone, she should just miss him/her freely without any need for restraint or persuasion.
After standing quietly like this holding the horse for a long time, she heard the sound of horse hooves slowly approaching.
The man dismounted from his horse. The familiar sound of his footsteps made her know it was Huo Gannian without even looking up.
Huo Gannian walked up to her, without saying a word, and just silently held her in his arms.
After hesitating for a moment, he spoke in a low voice, bringing bad news:
"The bodies of three of the children were found."
After he said this, he immediately held Yun Chen even tighter, almost at the same time as Yun Chen tried to break free.
She couldn't move, her eyes looked over his shoulder, staring blankly at Gou Xiaoliu, her head completely blank.
Three of the children?
Corpse or bones?
The Black Scale Cavalry always likes to leave the fleshless head part, and the rest...
Yun Chen couldn't even bear to imagine the cruel scene. She tried hard to piece together Huo Gannian's short sentence and understand it. Then a wave of grief struck her heart, and the pain was like a knife stabbing her. She buried her head in Huo Gannian's shoulder and cried out loud.
"I know that after Yancheng fell, you've been looking for Xun Xun's family, and so have I." Huo Gannian frowned, "According to the Huo Gang's spies' investigation, after Yancheng was captured, the four elderly people couldn't run, and Xun Xun's brother-in-law died on the spot due to leg pain... Liu had no choice but to flee with her sister and their five children. What a pity..."
It's a pity that Liu, a weak woman, couldn't take care of so many children at the same time, two of whom couldn't even walk, not to mention a mentally retarded sister.
It is hard to imagine how Liu managed to avoid the war and struggle on the desolate and unfamiliar roads.
One night, the three oldest children, in order to spare their mother a little trouble, secretly went looking for food while Liu was asleep. They happened to be encountered by a patrol of the Black Scale Cavalry...
The more he thought about it, the more he dared not to think about it. Yun Chen was in pain and guilt, and he cried so hard that he couldn't even say the words "I'm sorry, Brother Gou, I didn't take good care of his family."
Huo Gannian also had tears in his eyes and said solemnly:
"Xun Xun's widow Liu, his wife's sister, and their two remaining children. I will keep sending people to look for them. As long as we are alive, we will not give up. As long as they go to any of the Huo Gang's branches to ask for help or pay money, we will receive the news immediately."
These words gave Yun Chen some hope. She calmed down a little, but her eyes were red and swollen from crying.
"Ah Nian, I believe you. But..."
She looked into the distance, which was the direction of the main battlefield between the Lion Army and the Black Scale Cavalry.
But now she has become a majestic general, but she cannot protect her brother Xun Huan's family.
But how could the powerful Lion Army not be able to protect so many civilians?
Dankou, Miaomiao, the old lady and the neighbors...
Because of the war, there were more than just Xun Kan's family who were lost, displaced, and never found alive or dead.
The pitiful and tragic experience of this orphan and his widowed mother is just a microcosm of the most ordinary life of millions of ordinary people.
Although Yun Chen is wholeheartedly serving the country, she doesn't understand why the world is so big and they have to invade and fight wars?
Monarchs play games and emperors divide the spoils.
The scheming strategists sitting on the top of the clouds in the palace just move their fingers slightly, speaking conspiracies and lies, and the world is plunged into a bloody storm.
But they still think they haven't robbed enough and cheated enough.
They watched helplessly as the flames of war blazed beneath the heavens, and watched as the lives of those worthless were swept away by the tides of the rise and fall of dynasties, their corpses turning white as they rushed towards hell.
Looking at the desperate parents holding the bodies of their children, the elderly with no one to rely on, and the orphans without porridge to eat...
They know it, yet they still hope that the country will fall apart.
When the flag of this country finally fell, the backbone of the nation was finally broken, and every piece of smoke and stone pit on the scarred land was filled with the corpses of innocent refugees.
On top of these piles of bones, they will sing praises.
Sing and dance, establish a new dynasty.
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