A group of Zhou army cavalrymen were spreading along the road in the flat fields. In front of them was a man in civilian short clothes, pointing to a village in the distance and saying: General, the Khitans stationed nearby are all there.
At this moment, a general stretched his neck and looked towards the east, his eyes resting on the flag on the village. It was obvious that ordinary villages did not need to put up flags.
The general immediately said: We should take advantage of this to clear these small areas for the main vanguard.
The end will be
The general stretched out his palm forward, then bent it to the right, and said decisively: You lead your troops to attack from the left wing, and outflank from the north to the east.
Get the order
Envoy Li, you go to the right wing.
Get the order
In the blink of an eye, the general immediately drew his sword, raised it vertically, turned around and shouted: "The rest of you, follow me and kill all those with bald heads and those with long hair and strange clothes!"
The military official behind him immediately reminded him: General, did you kill civilians with the order of your superiors
The general said coldly: Someone came to your yard without your consent to burn, kill and loot. What kind of reason is there for using a knife? Hebei is our territory.
He pointed his sword forward. The soldiers heard the general's words and sped up their horses. The sound of horses' hooves and shouting immediately filled the snow-covered fields.
The war horses ran faster and faster, and a herd of horses rushed out. The iron armor reflected brightly in the snow. Although there were only a few hundred horses, they seemed unstoppable.
There was actually a simple wooden tower with a thatched roof at the entrance of the village, as well as fences and a village gate. The horses did not stop but rushed straight to the village gate.
A whizzing sound of arrows was thrown out from the village. There was a clanging sound of impact, like stones thrown into the water, which did not affect the charge of the Zhou army's horses in iron armor at all.
The soldier on the arrow tower drew his bow and shot an arrow at a horse. As expected, the leather armor on the horse was not very protective. With a neigh, a horse knelt on its front hooves and the man on the horse fell down with a scream.
But the Zhou army cavalry had rushed to the front in an instant. Many arrows were nailed to the wood of the arrow tower. The soldiers on it turned pale immediately. As expected, they were immediately hit by several arrows and fell from the tower. The bodies with arrows in them fell to the ground with a bang, like birds shot down from the sky.
There was another loud bang, and a horse actually knocked over the wooden fence. A group of horsemen immediately rushed in through the gap. The Liao cavalry inside rushed up to fight, and for a while there was a loud clang of collision and fighting.
The Zhou army's troops continued to pour in like a flood, and the Liao cavalry were immediately swept away and swallowed up in the tide of troops and horses.
The cavalry on the left and right wings also broke through the fence and rushed in from several directions. Under the gray sky, there were dots of light in the air between the old houses, and rockets were thrown onto the roofs. Torches were thrown everywhere, and soon a big fire started, and thick smoke billowed in the village.
The rumbling sound of horse hooves could be heard in the thick smoke, and only soldiers of the Zhou army could be seen on the road.
A dog ran out of a burning room, barking, with its tail between its legs. A Zhou knight leaned sideways on his galloping horse, drew his bow and fired an arrow, and the dog fell to the ground, barking.
Soon, many Khitans and Xi people rushed out of the burning room, kneeling on the roadside with their hands raised sideways, talking incoherently, but no Zhou army soldiers paid attention to them, and arrows kept flying from the horse herd. Those people got up and fled, but were chased by the Zhou army warriors on horseback, who stabbed them with swords when they caught up with them, and screams could be heard from time to time in the firelight.
In less than half an hour, the village turned into a ruin filled with black smoke, corpses were everywhere, and the air was filled with a burning smell.
Not long after, the vanguard commander Shi Yanchao arrived here with a team of troops. He commended the general leading the army on the spot, praised him for a good job, and gave him credit for his first military achievement after joining the Liao Dynasty.
Some common people along the way were not afraid of the warriors. When they heard that the royal army was marching north, they lined the road to offer them food and drink.
Shi Yanchao was very happy to see this scene, and he loudly ordered in front of the people: "Inform all the tribes, no Han people in Hebei are allowed to be killed!"
But he soon found a woman crying on the side of the road holding her child.
Shi Yanchao saw that the woman was wearing a coarse cloth dress, completely dressed like a Han Chinese, so he asked casually: Why is the woman crying
A general hurriedly replied: "I just asked someone to check. The woman's name seems to be Xu Erniang or Wang Erniang, but her husband is a Khitan. Her husband was killed and her house was burned down, so she was crying there, but we ignored her."
After the general finished speaking, he added: Most of the local women in Khitan families were abducted by force.
Shi Yanchao was riding on his horse with an unhappy look on his face. He frowned and repeated: "Why is she crying?"
The general was slightly startled, stretched out his hand and scratched his forehead, and said hurriedly: She was robbed, maybe she shouldn't care about the dead Khitan. But the Khitan was the father of her child, and her child was fatherless, so she might feel pity. Marshal, women have maternal instincts and care about their children.
Shi Yanchao said expressionlessly: "It's such a simple thing, and I still need to teach you. Without that child, she has nothing to do with the Khitans."
The general was stunned, but immediately clasped his fists and said: I understand.
He turned his horse around, left the cavalry, rode back, drew the sword from his waist, jumped off the horse, and walked towards the woman.
The woman looked at the Zhou general with tears in her eyes and heard him sigh softly.
The general walked up to the woman, glanced at her, and scratched her forehead again. The woman stopped crying and looked at him in confusion.
The general suddenly raised his sword and poked the swaddling clothes in her arms. His action was light, but quick and accurate, and he immediately pulled the sword back.
The woman was startled for a moment, then looked down and saw blood seeping out of the swaddling clothes in her arms. Her face suddenly changed, and she spread out one hand, which was covered in blood. She opened the swaddling clothes again and her body trembled.
Ah! The woman screamed miserably and called her child.
She rushed towards the general like crazy, and several soldiers immediately blocked her way and grabbed her without saying a word. The woman's strength was naturally not as good as that of the imperial guards, so she couldn't move and couldn't do anything to the general. She watched him go away.
Shi Yanchao immediately forgot about the trivial matter and dispatched the main force of the vanguard to continue moving northward.
The Zhou army's vanguard had 18,000 cavalrymen. They did not encounter any decent resistance along the way, only sporadic conflicts occurred, and they swept through the Liao army strongholds along the way.
Behind them, the main force of Guo Shao's central army followed the vanguard and crossed the Juma River. A large number of troops poured into the border of the Liao Kingdom.
The endless fields, the dark soil still covered with unmelted snow, looked like an old man, showing the traces of time. On several roads, herds of horses were moving slowly northward, with countless flags fluttering in the wind.
All the soldiers were the imperial guards of the Zhou army. There were countless of them, and they were wearing similar clothes and armor, so it was difficult to tell who was who among them.
Zhao Hu was one of them, he rode his horse silently in the crowd, just following the crowd. The horses walked slowly, it felt slow, but the infantry was still much faster on foot.
At this moment, he suddenly found a person standing there blankly next to the ruins of the wall in front of him.
Zhao Hu was immediately attracted to the woman. Not only did the person look strange, but he also felt that the figure seemed familiar. He didn't say anything for a while, just stared at the person and continued to move forward. The soldiers around also noticed the woman, but no one paid attention to an unarmed and dishevelled woman, who was not worth the army's attention.
As they got closer, Zhao Hu finally recognized them. His expression immediately became exaggerated. His slow movements immediately became hurried, and he kicked his horse's belly and rushed out of the queue.
Zhao Hu's ten generals shouted from behind.
Zhao Hu was anxious, but afraid of military law, so he quickly shouted: I know the person over there.
As soon as she shouted, the woman turned around and looked over. Zhao Hu ran in front of her, jumped off his horse, walked over quickly, and stared with wide eyes: Xu Erniang, Erniang
The woman named Xu Erniang also stared blankly at the young man in armor and weapons coming over: You are Zhao Hu
Yes. Zhao Hu's expression was very complicated, and his face was almost distorted. He walked in front of Xu Er Niang, opened his mouth, and finally uttered a sentence: Er Niang, you
Zhao Hu's mind was in a state of confusion for a moment. Countless scattered memories came to his mind, including the slender figure beating wet clothes by the pond, the annoying man who looked at her from afar and whom she dared not approach, and the torn women's clothes and bloodstains on the straw in the Xu family's yard.
But now, the woman in front of him had a pale face, her long hair was disheveled and covered with straw, and her coarse clothes were dirty and messy. She was no longer the young girl she was before, but now she was a woman.
Zhao Hu gritted his teeth, his eyes felt sore and bitter, his throat moved and a salty taste came from his throat.
Tears suddenly flowed from Xu Erniang's eyes: They killed my child.
Zhao Hu exhaled and said in a trembling voice: You have a child, who killed your child
Xu Erniang raised her arm and pointed at the Zhou army on the road.
Zhao Hu lowered his head and thought about it, and roughly guessed that her child was kidnapped by the Khitan people, and her child was killed by the vanguard of the Zhou army.
Zhao Hu was silent for a moment, then said: Your brother was killed by the Khitans, didn't you know
Xu Erniang opened her eyes wide, her eyes filled with tears, and suddenly her body went limp and she knelt on the cold ground.
Zhao Hu stood there. The woman in front of him was the girl he had missed day and night before. But now he didn't know what to say. The beautiful girl who used to make him blush at the sight of her, what has she become now
Zhao Hu looked back at the land and for a moment he didn't know where he was. He didn't know what had caused all this.