"Yes, I was too anxious. The speed at which the imperial court collapsed in the past two years was too frightening."
Liu Zhuang rubbed his temple anxiously.
"The Yellow Turban Rebellion emptied the treasury of Luoyang, so the people of Liangzhou and Qiang people, who sensed the weakness of the central government, joined forces to rebel. The emperor had no money and no soldiers, so he forced the Southern Xiongnu to recruit soldiers, which forced the Southern Xiongnu to refuse to cooperate. They even tentatively let some small tribes rebel to test the reaction of the Han emperor and open up the defense line, allowing the Xianbei to go south to test the military strength of the Han Dynasty... This chain reaction is really one link after another.
Yuwen Xianbei is just an ally and spy sent by the Southern Xiongnu Great Khan. This is just an advance force. Once they succeed, the next to go south will be the entire Southern Xiongnu tribe, and maybe several Xianbei tribes he has allied with. At that time, it will be a real disaster. I dare not imagine what will happen if this chain reaction continues. "
Liu Zhuang was deeply impressed by the Changshui Battalion, which was composed entirely of Southern Xiongnu among the five battalions of the Northern Army. The overall quality of the Southern Xiongnu army was definitely not as good as that of the Changshui Battalion, but their numbers far exceeded that.
"Well, on the other hand, as long as we can deal with the invading Yuwen Xianbei cleanly and beautifully, and use our strength to tell the Southern Xiongnu Great Khan that the Han army should not be underestimated, can't we stop this chain reaction? Come, I will play a piece of music for my husband, but you have to lift my veil first."
Guo Huai stuck close to Liu Zhuang in a coquettish manner, massaging her husband's forehead with her ten slender fingers.
Liu Zhuang forced himself to suppress all his worries. He was right. There was no point in worrying now. He should go back to Anyi first. Then he slowly lifted Guo Huai's veil. The beautiful and gorgeous red brocade and the expensive and luxurious gold tassels slowly passed across Guo Huai's beautiful and dignified face. His expectant yet uneasy expression was heart-beating. His blood-red lips flickered alluringly in the candlelight in the cabin.
Her exquisite figure was hidden under the even more gorgeous and beautiful red robe, making her look graceful and elegant.
Guo Huai was also moved when he saw Liu Zhuang, who was dressed up in a red wedding gown. Her heavily made-up cheeks were covered with two red sunset clouds. She pretended to be calm, lit the incense, washed her hands, and played the zither with great ritual. Her slender fingers were like moonlight on the strings. The sound of the zither was melodious, sometimes passionate, sometimes low, as surging as the waves and as gurgling as a stream, beautiful and refreshing.
As the eldest daughter of a wealthy family, Guo Huai was proficient in music, chess, calligraphy and painting since childhood. The music she played was pleasant to the ears, and the elegant beauty sitting in front of the jade zither, accompanied by the music of incense, was even more intoxicating.
"You haven't heard of this song, have you? This piece of music is a fragment of a Zhou Dynasty score found by the Guo family. Only a few people can play it. This Yaoqin is of top quality, with excellent music and is worth tens of thousands of coins."
Guo Huai proudly showed her outstanding talent to her husband. In the ancient times, common people had no chance to get in touch with music. Music, books, singing and dancing were all luxuries that only wealthy families could afford.
Guo Huai suddenly realized that Liu Zhuang was born into a peasant family, and that he might be showing off too much by doing this. His proud eyes became a little flustered, and he quickly added a sentence.
"But it doesn't matter. I can play it for you for the rest of my life."
"Okay, I want to listen to you play for the rest of my life."
Looking at this dignified and generous daughter of aristocratic family, Liu Zhuang, in addition to his love for her, always couldn't help wanting to bully her. Seeing her shy look, he held Guo Huai in his arms and gave her another long kiss, which made Guo Huai confused and dazed. Unconsciously, Liu Zhuang had taken off his clothes, revealing his strong body that had been tempered by more than a year of war. Guo Huai's eyes turned red with shame, and he closed his eyes slightly, nervously and shyly looking forward to a night of spring.
Liu Zhuang was not in a hurry. He lifted her up from the bed and sat in front of the piano himself.
Guo Huai was a little confused, not knowing what he wanted to do. Unexpectedly, Liu Zhuang directly lifted up her exquisite and beautiful red skirt, hugged her slender body, and placed it on his legs. The long spear, covered by the red wedding skirt, passed through the white stockings tightly stretched on a pair of beautiful legs, and touched the pink and tender cave that had already been gurgling with water.
Liu Zhuang slowly squeezed in and loosened his grip a little. Guo Huai let out a cute scream and sat down on Liu Zhuang's legs. The long spear still tore the thin layer of soft membrane and reached the heart of the flower, making the newlyweds become one.
"Huh? Why are you sitting here?"
Guo Huai was a little confused.
"Didn't you say you would play the piano for me forever? Play now, but don't make any mistakes. As the eldest daughter of the Guo family, you will definitely be laughed at if you make a mistake in playing the music."
Liu Zhuang kissed his wife's soft ear with a wicked smile.
"Playing the piano is a very solemn and ceremonial thing. How can you play it while feeling awkward..."
Guo Huai's words of objection were blocked by a long kiss from Liu Zhuang. She was a little confused at the moment, her face flushed with shame. She endured the feeling of fullness and tearing in her lower body, sat on Liu Zhuang's legs, and started a new round of performance, letting the dreamy piano sound echo back and forth in the cabin.
Liu Zhuang used his hands to vigorously knead her towering snow-capped breasts through her red wedding dress, and felt the softness and warmth inside his palms through a thin layer of red satin.
Guo Huai let out a moving moan but continued playing the piano without any disorder in the rhythm. Liu Zhuang became interested and put his arms around her slender waist, letting her body swing up and down on his long spear, sometimes pulling it out of the cave, bringing endless emptiness and itching, and sometimes going deep into the heart of the flower, bringing endless fulfillment and pleasure.
A touching blush appeared on Guo Huai's dignified and beautiful face, and his brain was almost overwhelmed by happiness. However, because of the pride of his family, he still played the strings in his hands in an orderly manner, only adding the syllables of panting to this sacred music.
"It's a little different from what you played last time. The beat is a little messed up."
"That's not you, you've been making trouble!"
Guo Huai complained in a coquettish manner, this kind of happiness was something he had never experienced before, it made him want to give up thinking, forget everything and just enjoy the happiness, but he had to stay rational and play the music. The extreme indulgence and extreme rationality were intertwined, making Guo Huai's whole brain burn, as if he had come to a cloud of happiness. His dignified and beautiful face showed a dissolute expression while continuing to play the elegant music of mountains and flowing water.
Liu Zhuang gradually increased the speed, making his attack faster and fiercer. Guo Huai's ten jade fingers also played on the strings like flying birds, faster and faster. The soothing and elegant sound of mountain streams turned into the urgent and swift blue sea waves, and then turned into the high-pitched and exciting sound of the battlefield!
Guo Huai simply let himself go, cooperating with Liu Zhuang's wave after wave of violent attacks, playing the seven-stringed harp almost crazily. In the frenzied and joyful music, the whole person seemed to be riding on a small boat, being carried by the waves to higher and higher skies, and finally being carried to the blissful sky by a burst of hot liquid!
When she woke up, it was already the next morning. Guo Huai thought of the ridiculous things that happened last night and her face turned red with shame. She clenched her pink fists and kept hitting Liu Zhuang's arms, while having sex and playing at the same time. Even the most ridiculous singing girl would not think of playing like this, but last night, she actually did it for him!
Chapter 126: The Immortal of Balance
March 17, 1913
The ships moved downstream very quickly. These ships carrying a thousand war horses crossed the entire Taiyuan in one day and one night and arrived at Jiexiu. After crossing Jiexiu, they reached the territory of Hedong County.
Liu Zhuang hugged Guo Huai's weak and boneless body, admired the scenery on both sides of the Fen River, and looked at Jie Xiu worriedly. His double pupils allowed him to see the distant city from a distance of thousands of meters.
This city looks quite solid. Standing between the mountains and rivers, it is the throat connecting Hedong and Taiyuan. The city wall is made of rammed earth walls that are ten meters high and looks indestructible. This military stronghold stores a rather exaggerated amount of weapons and supplies. Half of the weapons used to arm the two battalions were bought from here. From the outside, it should be indestructible...
Liu Zhuang's face suddenly became serious, because he saw from a distance of several thousand meters that a large number of officials and followers in gorgeous clothes, riding horses and pulling carts, retreating in a long line, fleeing out of the border in a panic, looking quite panicked, and running all the way towards the east.
When his sight shifted to the west of Jiexiu City, his heart was in suspense—horses, horses and soldiers, all over the mountains and plains, carrying the banner of "Yuwen", were coming from the west like a mountain torrent! Bloody flags with rabbit-eared skulls, blue flags with double-headed eagles, green flags with three flowers, pink flags with ouroboros, and black flags with eight-pointed golden stars fluttered in the wind!
And under these five big flags, there are many small flags with complex patterns. The Yuwen Xianbei is not what he understood. It is not just a thousand people. Instead, it is a combination of the Yuwen tribe as the main body and countless small clans like Yuchi, Dugu, and Bu Liugu!
Moreover, when the Guan Duwei of Jiexiu saw the Xianbei troops coming to attack him, he simply abandoned the city and fled? So the northern gate of Hedong fell? ? ?
Liu Zhuang's pupils widened in disbelief and he wanted to curse. It turned out that it was better to rely on yourself than on others!
But when I think about it carefully, there is really no problem with this Captain Guan running away - I can buy a large amount of military equipment from him illegally, and God knows how much military equipment and food this man has sold on a daily basis. He might not even be able to arm his own soldiers.
As long as the Xianbei people could enter Jiexiu, they could settle their accounts with him directly. Even if they were later questioned, dismissed from their posts, and imprisoned, they could still bail themselves out by paying bribes to the eunuchs, and the remaining money would be enough for them to live a wealthy life for the rest of their lives.
"Row faster! Pass this stretch of water immediately!"
Although he could understand Guan Duwei's idea of treating Yuwen Xianbei as an immortal who could settle accounts and abandon the pass to escape, Liu Zhuang was still cursing his ancestors and immediately ordered the fleet to speed through here and not be caught by those troops, as the scale of the fleet was already over ten thousand!
Fortunately, Yuwen Xianbei's looting army was attracted by Jiexiu City, which had given up resistance. Most of them entered the city to loot, while another part was chasing Guan Duwei who had fled the city. They noticed that Liu Zhuang's fleet did not have many people and horses, and in the end, only two hundred light cavalry rushed over.
"Fleet on the river! Pull over the shore! We only want the boats! And the supplies inside! We don't want your lives! As long as we abandon the supplies, everyone can leave safely!"
The leader was a horseman who spoke fluent Chinese. He ran side by side with the boat on the shore, drawing his bow and arrow in an extremely arrogant manner.
"Otherwise, we'll fire rockets at your ship!"
"Don't stop the boats. The Xianbei are all on the west bank. All boats should immediately approach the east bank and go at full speed! Huo County is forty miles away. You will be safe there!!!"
Liu Zhuang immediately ordered the accompanying river boat fleet not to stop. At the same time, he immediately put on armor, took Zhao Yun, who was protecting him, and Guo Huai, who had just got married, to the cabin and selected three Yanmen horses.
"I'll give you the last ten seconds!"
The Xianbei captain was a little impatient. These boats had such a deep draft. What were they carrying? It would be a pity to burn the boats and the cargo together and sink them to the bottom of the river. He tried to persuade them to surrender again. What he didn't know was that while he was counting down, Liu Zhuang had also finished arming himself.
"Five! Four! Three! Is it about time?"
"Zilong, pass us to the face of that Xianbei captain!"
Zhao Yun nodded and casually pushed open a portal. A silver psychic storm, like a gentle hand, embraced the three people and three horses into the portal. The next moment, the three of them appeared on the face of the Xianbei captain!
“Sizzle!!!”
Zhao Yun acted extremely quickly. Before the person could be teleported over, his bright silver spear came out like a white dragon emerging from the sea and first pierced through the mouth of the Xianbei captain who was still counting down. With a flick of the spear, he cut his entire brain into pieces, with flesh flying everywhere and blood gushing out.
The two hundred soldiers who followed were all stunned when they saw the silver halo and the captain who died suddenly. What the hell was going on?
Guo Huai muttered to herself, and the air from her exhaled mouth turned into Confucian flames, forming a blazing flaming meteor in the air, which exploded among the group of centaurs. The colorful and splendid Confucian flames danced among the crowd. She started with her fireball spell with the largest range and highest damage to burn everything, engulf everything, and annihilate everything.
Liu Zhuang was not idle either, he used the ranger's second-ring magic, Thorn Magic.
In an instant, countless green thorns broke out of the ground under the feet of the people and horses, entangled with all the targets within sight like poisonous snakes and tentacles, like a rippling green wave.
The difference from the entanglement spell is that the entanglement spell only grows tender vines that will only trap the target, while the thorn spell grows thorns. While entangling a large number of people and horses, the hard and sharp thorns cut the horses' legs, causing them to burst into blood. Even if they escape from the area of the thorn spell, their hooves will be seriously injured, and it will be difficult for them to walk, let alone run.
After performing a thorn spell, Liu Zhuang wielded his night spear and stabbed the crowd, killing two soldiers in a row. Zhao Yun's Wuding Feilong's group teleportation ability was very powerful, and he caught the people and horses off guard. The three of them rushed into the enemy formation, killed the leader, and immediately rode their horses to keep a distance. The other people wanted to chase, but they were separated by Liu Zhuang's second thorn spell. Thirty or forty people and horses had their hooves injured, and lost the ability to chase.
"Hedong Governor Liu Zhuang is here! If you want my head, come and get it!"
Liu Zhuang took out the seal and jade token of the prefect without hesitation and reported his identity to the pursuing troops. Then he pulled Zhao Yun and Guo Huai and ran away. Seeing that the prefect of Hedong County was actually in front of them, the eyes of these troops were shining!
The governor of Hedong? A big fish! They abandoned the ship carrying a thousand war horses on the Fen River without hesitation and collectively chased after Liu Zhuang!
The author says:
Author's words: 1900 monthly tickets plus more~
Chapter 127: Colorful Black
Seeing that the attention of the Xianbei people had shifted from the boat to himself, Liu Zhuang breathed a sigh of relief, rode on the bumpy horse's back, twisted his waist backward, and used a very standard Hu archery technique to let the horse gallop forward while shooting arrows behind him. With the help of his double pupils, his arrows were fierce and accurate. Nine arrows killed four horses and seriously injured five horses. All the arrows hit his face, and every arrow hit its target, which frightened the chasing horses.
The arrows shot by the centaurs could not hurt the three people. Guo Huai used a [Protective Arrow] to create an invisible magic shield to protect the three people at the same time. The flying arrows were deflected from their flight trajectory in the air, and their accuracy was greatly reduced.
And those arrows that penetrated the shield could hardly hurt the three people wearing heavy armor. The better iron arrowheads could only cause some skin injuries after penetrating the gaps in the armor. The worse bone and stone arrowheads could not even penetrate the armor. If there were not so many people in this group, as many as two hundred of them, Liu Zhuang would have wanted to try three people against two hundred.
The two sides chased and ran all the way. Seeing that time had dragged on long enough, Liu Zhuang immediately gave an order to Zhao Yun to open another silver door. The three of them went in, and with the passing silver halo, they instantly moved to a position 150 meters ahead. Another round of heavy rain of arrows shot by the men and horses all fell sparsely on the ground.
Before the people and horses could react, Zhao Yun flashed six times in a row, leading three people and three horses to rush forward 900 meters, and disappeared directly from the sight of the group of people and horses. Only the silver flying stars she left behind could be seen.
"Forget it, the governor of Hedong ran away."
Seeing that the two hundred troops failed to catch up with the prefect and the boat had also run away, the morale was somewhat low. Another leader of the troops comforted everyone.
"Jiexiu has already fallen! Bingzhou is too poor, there is nothing to rob, we are about to enter the rich Hedong territory! The population of that county is greater than the population of Bingzhou! We are going to Anyi City, sooner or later we will see this governor again! When the time comes, everyone will send him an arrow!"
"it is good!!!"
The two hundred men were encouraged again. Seeing that they could not catch up, they did not force it and turned around to rob the treasures near Jie Xiu.
Liu Zhuang and others retreated to Huo County and finally breathed a sigh of relief. They immediately began martial law, ordered nearby villagers to stop spring ploughing and immediately retreat to the safety of the city walls - don't worry about the farmland, if they don't leave now they will lose their lives!
The magistrate of Huo County was shocked, and hurriedly followed the order of the prefect to clear the fields and strengthen the city defenses. Liu Zhuang also quickly went south to Anyi and began to gather soldiers under the military-farm system. Zhang He first took 500 armored soldiers from the Julu Camp to defend Yubi City, and another 2,000 lightly armored soldiers were being assembled.
The Xianbei troops' attack speed was astonishingly fast, and their route of advance was easy to guess. After breaking through the two defenses of Southern Xiongnu and Xihe, this group of people had two choices: go north to seize Taiyuan or go south to seize Hedong.
However, Taiyuan is too close to Yanmen. There are five battalions of border troops headed by Ding Yuan stationed in Yanmen County. Their combat effectiveness should not be underestimated. The Xianbei people came in to rob money, not to fight a decisive battle with the Han army, so they naturally would not go north to compete with the Bingzhou border troops.
Moreover, Bingzhou is poor and dilapidated. Only four of the nine counties are left after being destroyed. The population of one state is even less than that of one county in Hedong. It is poor and tough. I will definitely go south to cause trouble for Hedong.
The terrifying Dong Zhuo has been transferred away. The current governor of Hedong is Liu Zhuang? Who is this person? I have never heard of such a person. I am afraid he is another rookie who bought his position. He has a little ability at most. He dared to fight against my two hundred scouts with three people and three horses, but he ran away in the end.
Just like that, while Liu Zhuang was urgently mobilizing troops, the Xianbei people also began to march south to forage and plunder the people. Then they discovered a small problem - why did you return to the city so quickly? Where are the people? Where are the food and grass? Why did you all retreat back to the city walls?
The Xianbei people looked at the towering walls of Huo County with no desire to attack. They went south for reconnaissance for a distance and found that several nearby counties had also received Liu Zhuang's warning in advance and were in the process of clearing the countryside. The county magistrates and private soldiers of the aristocratic families also rushed out in large numbers and conducted intensive reconnaissance and patrols. The supplies that these scouts could destroy, burn, and loot were extremely limited.
After learning that Hedong County was making intensive preparations for war, Yuwen Xianbei also slowed down his offensive and allowed his soldiers to plunder Jiexiu City for a day. All the senior officials gathered together and held a small meeting.
"Tap - step -"
Accompanied by noisy conversations, laughter, and quarrels, countless horse hooves passed over the neat door lintel and stepped into the solemn and dignified county government office of Jiexiu City. Countless human and horse chiefs surrounded a black mare and entered the lobby.
The lights on both sides of the room flickered with golden halos in the darkness, splashing on her long, smooth and beautiful black hair like silk - no, the mare's hair was not pure black, but colorful like a crow's, hiding in the darkness.
Shen Jun's elegant and beautiful body proudly moves forward under the illumination of lights on both sides. The edges of her black hair are constantly interweaving and changing in red, orange, yellow, green, cyan, blue and purple rainbows under the illumination of lights at different angles. Even the slightest change in light and shadow will make countless brilliant streams of light dance in her black hair, as cool as colorful stars twinkling in the dark universe. However, all the brilliant colors will eventually fade into a pure black.
This colorful black mare, surrounded by the crowd, kicked away the chair for humans in the county government office with one hoof, and stood ambitiously in front of the stage. Her colorful long black hair half covered her young and beautiful face, and hung over her delicate white shoulders, finally falling on her round and jade-like breasts. She was only wearing a colorful tube top woven from her own hair, revealing half of her snow-white and tender chest, and her cute and small belly button was also exposed to the air.
And on that beautiful face, a pair of pupils were actually eight-pointed metallic flying stars, looking down at the heroes in the hall with pride.
The night wind blew, the lights flickered, and countless gorgeous and cool colors kept interweaving and changing on the long hair and fur of this black horse, making her appearance gorgeous to the extreme. Several people and horses were stunned, staring at the mare on the stage, unable to take their eyes away for a long time.
"Yuwen Tai! What should we do next? Hedong County is already prepared for war. Should we continue to go south to Hedong to rob?"
A two-meter-six-meter-tall, extremely burly and ferocious green-skinned orc warlord sat on the left side of the lobby, questioning the colorful black mare on the stage - this orc was one of the Southern Xiongnu chieftains who announced their separation from the Han Dynasty.
"We must go south to rob! Sister Black Otter, Taiyuan is too close to Yanmen. It's not like we haven't fought with the border troops of Yanmen before. Those people are tough! We are here to make a fortune, not to die!"
A chieftain of a troop who temporarily joined the Yuwen tribe called Yuwen Tai by his nickname and said that he would never go to Taiyuan, which led a large number of chieftains on both sides to agree with him.
This time, everyone is willing to follow your orders, Yuwen Tai, and go south together. You said that you have reached an agreement with the Southern Xiongnu. We can pass through the Southern Xiongnu's defense zone and suddenly appear in the weak areas of the Han Dynasty to grab some money. Who the hell wants to fight with the border troops?
Yuwen Tai looked around the stage. Dozens of leaders on both sides were soldiers, with only two exceptions. One was a green-skinned chief from the Southern Xiongnu, and the other was a Han Chinese.
She was dressed in the attire of the Hu people. The long Confucian robe turned into shorts and animal skins. The gold, silver and jade rings turned into animal tooth and bone carvings. Two small deer antlers stretched out from her forehead. A pair of deep black wings and a dragon tail covered with night scales broke out from the torn clothes on her slender waist. The blood-colored fluff formed a heart shape at the end of the dragon tail. Her stunning face, which was so beautiful that it was hard to imagine, turned into the most charming fantasy in the hearts of all the chiefs under the gaze of all the horsemen.
She looks similar to Liu Bei, but she is a black dragon, and her wings are pure black, not Liu Bei's pure white.
"He Liuhun, what do you think?"
Yuwen Tai did not answer but asked the Han woman present.
“Your family used to be a noble family in Wuyuan County, and your understanding of the Han Dynasty is deeper than any of us. You sneaked into Jiexiu City with your Han appearance, reported corruption, and scared off the Jiexiu commander with a letter, allowing us to capture the city without spending a single soldier. It is also your credit.
Liu Zhuang? Do you have any impression of this new governor of Hedong?"
"I've never heard of this person. He should be a newcomer during the Yellow Turban Rebellion."
He Liuhun shook his head and answered the leader of the alliance in fluent Xianbei language. The pair of wolf-tooth bone carvings hanging on his ears collided with each other, making a soft sound.
"Now that the front line is well prepared, I think we should not get too entangled with the nearby counties. Just like all the treasures of Jiexiu are hidden in the warehouses within the city walls, rather than in the farms outside the city walls, all the treasures of Hedong are stored in Anyi, the seat of Hedong County."
He Liuhun waved his slender hands and took out the map of the Han Dynasty that had been treasured by his family from his backpack.
“Hedong County has always been a rich inland area, and its defense facilities and vigilance are very weak. Don’t worry about the counties on both sides of the Fen River. No matter how small and weak they are, it will take time to conquer them.
At this moment, we rely on the mobility and speed advantage of the Xianbei and head straight to Anyi. With the help of you and me, Black Otter, and the siege facilities provided by the Southern Xiongnu chieftain, it is not a problem to capture Anyi, which is in a state of panic, in a short time. If we rob Anyi, we will also rob the most valuable property of Hedong County. Afterwards, everyone will divide the spoils and go home immediately. "
