Five days later, in the evening, deep in the Gulang grassland more than 200 miles west of Yulong Mountain...
Yan Liqiang was lying in the grass that was more than half a person's height on a mound of earth. He squinted his eyes and looked at a camp of the Shatu Seventh Tribe more than ten miles away.
Under the setting sun, the tents in the camp were covered with a layer of brilliant golden light. From a distance, they looked like golden steamed buns thrown on the grassland. Faint smoke was coming out of the chimneys of many tents. That was the smoke from the Shatu people using cow dung to cook in the tents. The smoke from the cow dung was very light, not as thick as the smoke from wolf dung. If you were a little far away and didn't pay attention, you couldn't see it at all.
This is a camp with five to six hundred tents and a population of probably over two to three thousand. Judging from the flags hanging in the camp, this camp should be a small branch of the Uli tribe.
Under Yan Liqiang's gaze, the atmosphere in the camp seemed a little strange. Women and children could be seen walking around in the camp, but outside the camp, there were no less than three groups of Shatu cavalry patrolling around the camp. They looked very nervous, as if they were afraid of enemies everywhere. Looking closely, even though women and children could be seen in the camp, the women seemed a little hurried when they walked back and forth in the tents with things to cook dinner in their hands. There was no sense of leisure, and the Shatu children were rarely seen playing around at this time. If a few children ran a little further away from the camp, adults would immediately shout at them in the camp, asking them to return to the camp...
Yan Liqiang's order to kill the Hu people completely changed the rules of survival on the Gulang grassland. In just over a month, the heads of the Shatu people were chopped off every day. Such a small tribe must have felt the biting cold and the tremendous pressure of survival, and everything became cautious and careful.
Ever since Yan Liqiang and his men discovered this small tribe two days ago, this small tribe has been migrating every day, heading further west. However, due to the large number of people and a lot of things in the tribe, their migration speed is relatively slow. If a few ox carts get stuck in the mud, or if they encounter a pack of wolves hanging around grass carp in the wild, the entire tribe may stop for several hours. Therefore, they can only walk fifty or sixty miles a day at most. However, this small tribe does not know yet that they have been targeted by Yan Liqiang and his men.
Yan Liqiang and his companions came out of the customs five days ago. When they came out of the customs five days ago, there were two roads in front of them. These two roads are also the roads that most of the rangers who enter the Gulang grassland will choose. One of them is to enter Baishi Pass and go deep into the Gulang grassland along the edge of Qiyun Mountain. Another option is to go deep along the edge of Yulong Mountain. These two roads, one east and one west, go in completely different directions. Those who take the Qiyun Mountain side are most likely to encounter the Black Jie people, while those who take the Yulong Mountain side are most likely to encounter people from the seven tribes of Shatu.
Qiyun Mountain and Yulong Mountain are like the arms of two giants, embracing the Gulang Grassland. Going deep into the edge of the two mountains can avoid running into the siege of the Black Jie people or the large forces of the seven Shatu tribes. This is also the experience of countless rangers who have entered the Gulang Grassland. If they really encounter a large force of the Black Jie people or the seven Shatu tribes, then as long as they go into the mountains, the large forces of the Shatu people and the Black Jie people will be useless. Therefore, these two mountain ranges have also become the rangers' reliance for entering the Gulang Grassland.
Yan Liqiang and his team chose to take the Yulong Mountain route.
Before entering the Gulang grassland, they thought that they would soon encounter people from the seven Shatu tribes, but after entering, they found that the people from the seven Shatu tribes had long been scared out of their wits. With the deepening of the various forces of the Han Empire and the knights, especially the continuous attacks and harassment from the various tribes and mountain people in Yulong Mountain, many small tribes of the Shatu people who had previously lived in the grassland near Yulong Mountain had been destroyed, and the large tribes had also suffered different losses. All the people from the seven Shatu tribes had already become frightened birds at this time, and began to migrate continuously to avoid the various forces of the Han Empire that entered the Gulang grassland.
On the side of Yulong Mountain near the Gulang Grassland, in just over a month, the Qiyun Protectorate had formed a corridor hundreds of kilometers long without sending a single soldier. The corridor was filled with rangers and countless armed headhunters. In this corridor, whenever the troops of the seven Shatu tribes appeared, they would basically never return, and were there to seek their lives.
The same corridor also appeared on the side of Qiyun Mountain close to the Gulang Grassland. These two corridors were expanding almost every day as the power of the Han Empire continued to increase and flow into the Gulang Grassland.
Yan Liqiang and his group walked in the Han Corridor on the Yulong Mountain side for three days. They encountered many rangers and militiamen, but did not catch a single hair of the Shatu people. Finally, after everyone discussed it, they boldly went deeper to the west, and as expected, they ran into a small tribe under the Wuli tribe.
Although the tribe in front of them was small, it was still a behemoth for Yan Liqiang and his team of six rangers.
I don't know if this small tribe suffered a loss before and lost manpower, but ever since they were targeted by Yan Liqiang and his team, Yan Liqiang and his team found that the people in this tribe were extremely cautious in their actions. Even the patrol team had at least fifty people, and there were also people in the team carrying flares. Once there was any movement, the flares would be fired and the whole tribe would be alarmed.
Yan Liqiang and his men were unable to swallow so many people in one gulp, but they were unwilling to watch such a big piece of fat meat of tens of thousands of acres of grassland and farmland fly away from their mouths. So they could only carefully follow this small tribe. They had been following them for two days in a row, looking for an opportunity to take action.
This scene made Yan Liqiang think of the wild wolves hunting the migrating buffalo herds on the African grasslands. The six rangers were like six wild wolves with green eyes.
If Yan Liqiang did not suppress his own strength, he could rush in and kill as many people as he wanted in such a small tribe of two or three thousand people. However, at the moment, Yan Liqiang could only suppress his urge to fight and kill, and keep calming himself down. At the same time, he kept reminding himself that he was now a martial artist and he had to use his ability as a martial artist to solve this problem.
There was a rustling sound coming from the bushes behind him. Yan Liqiang knew who was coming without turning around.
Sure enough, more than ten seconds later, a Mao Taishun head with a Dali-style long upturned beard emerged from the grass behind Yan Liqiang.
At this moment, Mao Taishun was wearing a hat woven with straw on his head, and a layer of anti-mosquito ointment on his face, which made him look colorful and somewhat funny. Of course, Yan Liqiang himself also looked like this. Dressing like this was not Yan Liqiang's idea. He wanted everyone to pretend to be special forces with him, but after entering Gulang, almost all the rangers looked like this. This was the survival and fighting skills summed up by the rangers themselves.
Although this place is still far away from the camp of the Shatu people, Mao Taishun's voice still reveals a sense of caution, "Brother Wang, Jia Lang just got a piece of news. Brother Zuo asked us to go over to discuss something important..."
"Okay..." Yan Liqiang nodded, and did not stand up. Instead, he turned around in the grass, crawled, and followed Mao Taishun all the way to the back of the mound and arrived at the meeting place.
When Yan Liqiang came, several other people also crawled over from different directions, half-crouching on the ground, and met here.
"Jia Lang, what news did you just hear? Tell everyone..." Zuo Yuquan said in a low voice.
"I just heard from the patrolling Shatu people that this small tribe may merge with another small tribe tomorrow. After this merger, their number may exceed 5,000..." Jia Lang licked his lips and said in a low voice.
Yan Liqiang did not doubt Jia Lang's words, because Jia Lang could understand Shatu language, and just now, right under his nose, Jia Lang crossed a small river not far away, went back from the river to the grass on the road where a patrol team passed more than 2,000 meters away from the camp, and hid in the bushes. When the patrolling Shatu cavalry passed by, the distance between the two sides was only more than ten meters. Yan Liqiang himself was worried about Jia Lang...
(End of this chapter)