Three Kingdoms

Although it is indeed summer now, north of Yinshan Mountain and deep in the desert, it seems that there are only two seasons in a year, spring and winter.

The wind in Mobei is always carefree, whistling from one side to the other. The only difference is whether it is wielding a small knife or using a big knife to cut people...

Zhao Yun stood on a grassy slope, and the wind blew past him, blowing his cloak high behind him.

Down the slope, in the middle of this meadow, there was a pond. Soldiers were camping beside the pond. Some were washing their horses with them, while others were setting up tents. They were busy and orderly.

Most of the areas north of Yinshan Mountain have such terrain.

This is the Gobi.

The wind blowing from the north is like a knife, not only cutting people, but also cutting land. The sharp-edged stones on the ground are enough to prove all this.

If you are not familiar with the terrain, it is not only easy to lose your way, but unlike the south of Yinshan Mountain, it is easier to find water sources as long as you don't go into the desert wasteland. The water source here is scarce, and if you are not careful, the entire army may be buried among the yellow sand and gravel because there is no water supply.

Zhao Yun had already seen a lot of bones during his trip north. There are those of humans and animals. Even these bones are only a few miles away from the next water source, but there is a difference between life and death.

This road sounds like a road of conquest, but in fact it is more like a road of life and death. As long as you survive, you are victorious. At this moment, Zhao Yun truly felt why these nomadic Hu people seemed to be drunk now, and they took life and death very lightly. I am afraid this vast Gobi Desert is the answer.

Zhao Yun looked back and saw that around the puddle, Han and Hu people were singing and dancing happily, and they were very happy to find such a nest of water of life. From this perspective, if you take a rough look like this, you can't tell clearly which ones are Han people and which ones are Hu people. At this moment, they are all equally happy and excited...

As if he was infected by his soldiers, Zhao Yun also smiled slightly, but soon he looked up to the vast sky, and the smile on his face shrank little by little.

After taking the remnants of the Black Mountain troops to the Yin Mountains, Zhao Yun immediately received the order to lead the team north to the desert...

Yinshan was run by General Zhengxi, and no one could deny this. Therefore, it was naturally impossible for Fei Qian to allow Zhao Yun the opportunity to participate in the specific deployment and arrangement of the people in Heishan. Zhao Yun naturally understood this. But knowing clearly does not mean that you can understand it. Even if you can understand it, it does not mean that you can accept it willingly in your heart. But apart from silently accepting it, Zhao Yun has no other way...

For these soldiers at the lower level, whether they are Han or Hu people, most of them don't care about how the remnants of the Black Mountains are settled, because it has nothing to do with them. However, for Zhao Yun, it is naturally a little different.

The main reason is because of what Zhang Yan said before he died.

Without Zhang Yan's words, Zhao Yun would not have become as deep as he is now. When the head of Zhang Yan, his former leader and the commander-in-chief who was kind to him, was held in his hands, Zhao Yun's mood was indeed too complicated to describe.

Without Zhang Yan's shelter, Zhao Yun might have died on the way to escape from Changshan...

Without Zhang Yan's promotion back then, perhaps Zhao Yun would not have had the chance to become a small commander, and naturally he would not have the opportunity he has today...

And now, Zhang Yan is dead.

Die in your own hands and in front of yourself.

If Zhao Yun was a cold-natured person, he would have happily thrown all these things out of the sky and started his own life as if nothing had happened...

It's a pity that Zhao Yun is not such a person.

It is precisely because of this that Zhao Yun is troubled.

If you are a small soldier, naturally even distress will not have much effect. Even if Zhao Yun is torn apart, how many nails can be driven into this body of iron? But now there are more than 2,000 people under his command, nearly a thousand of whom are old members of the original Black Mountain. How to go from now on has become a burden that hovers in Zhao Yun's heart.

Out of Mobei, Zhao Yun basically took the lead. No matter how difficult and dangerous the road was, no matter how dangerous the situation, he always rushed to the front. It seemed that only fighting on the edge of life and death could make Zhao Yun temporarily forget the suffering in his heart. .

Zhao Yun was so brave that the soldiers under his banner were naturally strong. The journey was like trampling on the blood and bones of the Xianbei people.

The further north he went, the more silent Zhao Yun became. Day after day, often within a day, he could not speak a few words. He also quickly lost weight. His originally square face lost weight and became a sharp chin. As for The youthful childishness that was still there between the eyebrows has been almost completely polished away, leaving only hardness and strength, just like the gravel on the Gobi Desert.

What now?

What about the future?

These questions in my heart are like the wind in Mobei, whistling, picking up sand and gravel, grinding in my heart until it is worn to pieces...

"... Report... Captain, this place... is almost five hundred miles away from Yinshan Mountain..." An old soldier walked up from the slope, hesitated for a moment, but still said.

The silence of Zhao Yun not only made the soldiers more in awe, but also increased a lot of barriers. At least now, the soldiers at the grassroots level did not dare to tease Zhao Yun casually. Even these old soldiers who were familiar with Zhao Yun were the same. .

Zhao Yun was like a statue, and the lines on his thin face were like the hardest rocks. After a long moment of silence, he said: "We will return tomorrow."

This time, Zhao Yun's mission is to clear out all the Xianbei tribes within 500 miles of the desert in the north of Yinshan Mountain, and create an extremely cruel no-man's land...

Now it's time to return.

In fact, creating an uninhabited land is not as difficult as most people think. There are actually traces to be followed in clearing out the Xianbei tribe. After all, Xianbei is also a human being and has animals, so it must have water, so in fact, it is just along the water source, all the way north, There is no need to pay attention to the rest of the Gobi Desert where there is no water source, because it is originally a restricted area for life.

Of course, the prerequisite for doing this is to have a guide who is familiar with the roads and the distribution of water sources of this generation. However, this may still be a difficult problem for others, but for Fei Qian, the general who conquered the West, he not only had the Xiongnu but also the The Qiang people and even the Xianbei people who were captured early in the morning, so it was not difficult to find some guides who knew the distribution of water sources in Mobei.

It's quite interesting to talk about these barbarians. Maybe it's because they have become accustomed to the law of the jungle on the grassland. Maybe it's because they have been replaced by commanders like a revolving door from the Xiongnu to Xianbei for so many years. Maybe they haven't formed their own set of comparisons. Systematic cultural inheritance, regardless of the reason, these barbarians do not seem to show much obedience to the current leadership of General Fei Qian in the Western Expedition, and sometimes they are so honest that it is surprising.

In fact, there were many such Hu people in the Han Dynasty. Even during the heyday of the Xiongnu, there were still a large number of Hu people. Whether they were Qiang people, Xiongnu, or Donghu people, they were all willing to obey the recruitment and orders of the Han Dynasty.

After receiving Zhao Yun's order, both the Han soldiers and the Hu people began to prepare. The most important task was naturally to refill the shriveled water bladders. In this Mobei area, water is the continuation of life. Even the big animals seem to understand something. They all work hard to bury their heads at the edge of the puddle, drinking water gurglingly, as if You need to make up for the lack of water along the way all at once, or work hard to reserve water for the journey back...

At dawn, everyone got up and prepared to return.

Zhao Yun came to the puddle silently, and he was about to carry out his second task...

The puddles are very clear. I don't know which underground river brought the water. It was extremely sweet, but now Zhao Yun needed to completely destroy this water source.

Although it is temporary, during the period of time when the water source is polluted, humans do not need to think about drinking such water directly...

At least at this time, neither Han nor Hu people had the habit of boiling water before drinking it.

"Bind the cattle and sheep, kill them, and sink them." Zhao Yun took one last look at the clear puddle, turned around and ordered.

The mournful screams of the animals soon disappeared, along with the red color rippling over the puddles. Such a water source that could have been directly drank would turn into poisonous water rich in various bacteria and microorganisms in a short period of time.

A large number of bacteria and microorganisms produced after animal carcasses decompose will continue to multiply in puddles and the like. It only takes two or three days to reach an astronomical value. By then, if humans and animals drink from this puddle, there will be no Raw water that has been treated in any way will undoubtedly be infected with diseases...

In an era without antibiotics like the Han Dynasty, once a serious bacterial or fungal infection occurred, it often meant one thing, death.

Normally, if an animal's carcass is exposed in the wild without any treatment or touch, it will enter the decay period in about 3 days, and the whole body will be completely decomposed and eventually turn into white bones. It takes about a year.

If it is buried in the soil, it will usually take seven to eight years for it to completely rot and turn into bones. If it is immersed in water, it will take longer than the bones in the soil, and it may even take more than ten years.

In other words, if the Hu people had not thoroughly cleaned the rotting carcasses of animals that had sunk to the bottom of the puddle, it might have taken ten years for the water in the puddle to gradually return to its original cleanliness.

This kind of behavior was actually first used by the Huns.

When Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was in his old age, after forcing the crown prince Liu Zheng and Queen Wei to death, he also executed tens of thousands of people. The road to governance was temporarily blocked. In addition, when General Li Guangli of the Second Division was ordered to send troops, he heard that Prime Minister Liu Qu It was reported that Ya and Li Guangli conspired to make Liu Qu, the king of Changyi, the crown prince. At this time, Li Guangli had already won and was chasing the Huns. As a result, the old and suspicious Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty did not even have the patience to wait, so he directly ordered Liu Qu to be beheaded. Put Li Guangli's wife in jail...

The result naturally led to Li Guangli's defeat. When the news came, the whole country was in turmoil, which forced Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty to have a little reflection, or to compromise, and finally issued a "Luntai Sinner Edict", in which there was a mention. The Xiongnu sent witches to bind their horses and bury them in roads and water to curse the Han army.

This is probably the earliest biochemical attack...

Several Hu soldiers saw this scene, dismounted from their horses, prostrated themselves on the ground, pressed their heads tightly into their palms, and murmured in low voices not knowing what to say anymore...

Such abnormal behavior naturally attracted Zhao Yun's attention. Zhao Yun glanced at them, his eyes flashed a few times, then he rode his horse to the front of these barbarian veterans and said, "Why is this so?"

The old Hu man kowtowed on the ground and said: "Commander, if you do this, this thing... your life will be short..."

Another barbarian said: "Our witch did it before... Later, he died very early..."

"Loss of life?" Zhao Yun frowned.

The concept of mystery in the Han Dynasty was still very strong. Gods and all kinds of gods had a certain market, and they would not be exclusive and attack other beliefs like later generations.

In other words, the current Han Dynasty is like a market that has just been opened up. All the gods want is to make this market bigger. It has not yet reached a saturated state, so there is no competition. Everyone is good to you and me. Hello everyone……

Therefore, the Hu people believed in the Immortal Heaven or the White Stone God, and the Han people did not think there was any prohibition on it. Of course, in fact, the beliefs of the Han people were relatively confusing in this era. Not to mention others, there were five Guangtian Emperors, including One of them is the incarnation of Liu Bang, so there is really no such emphasis on which one should have a fixed belief.

Therefore, when the old Hu talked about Changshengtian, Zhao Yun did not feel that Huren's Changshengtian had no control over him, so he insulted or slandered him. Instead, he felt that Changshengtian was like another emperor of heaven. It’s just the Emperor of Heaven, there’s no need to worry about anything.

"Yes, yes..." The old Hu man kowtowed repeatedly and said, "We are substitute captains, praying to the Immortal Heaven..."

Zhao Yun was silent for a moment and said calmly: "Get up! There is no need to pray..."

After finishing speaking, Zhao Yun immediately turned his horse's head and ordered loudly: "All troops! Set off!"

Zhao Yun will do this not only this time, nor just in this place, but in all water sources within five hundred miles north of Yinshan Mountain!

If your life is shortened, then your life is shortened!

In such a troubled world, you can only rely on your heart!

For the sake of border stability and the stability of the people, I am willing to lose my life!

only……

General Zhengxi, don’t let me down...