Chapter 258 Trading
When the sun was shining brightly in Houting County, the surrounding area of Beifeng City was still shrouded in snow.
The whistling sound of the wind and snow made the general's tent look extraordinarily quiet.
The temporary tent of the chief general was not too big. A dozen generals wearing the armor of the frontier army commander sat on both sides of the tent, and an old man with white hair and beard sat on the main seat.
None of them has a cultivation base lower than the third rank, and they hold heavy soldiers, and each of them is a big shot who can make the northern border tremble three times with a stomp.
But at this moment, a death-like silence spread among the powerful figures of the sect.
A quarter of an hour ago,
They have learned through various channels that a cloud gas bomb was detonated in Houting County.
A few days ago, when the imperial court took out two Yunqi bombs and asked them to go south immediately to reinforce Beifeng City, some people once had crooked thoughts about Yunqi bombs.
No way, Yunqi bomb is a good thing.
After seeing the effect of the cloud energy bomb, this new type of weapon that can change the sky immediately aroused their greed.
As long as they get a sample, their own formation masters can try to reverse research.
Lou Ji didn't dump them at all.
Leaving a sentence of whether they love to go or not, at worst, they will die together, so they directly shattered their greed.
The northern closure of the city was lost, and the imperial court's 300,000 troops were trapped and died in the snowfield. At best, it was a great loss of vitality for the imperial court, but it was a disaster for them, the northern sects.
Once their 300,000 elites are lost, all kinds of large-scale medicine fields, workshops, equipment workshops, banks and other industries will directly face the barbarian soldiers.
Besides some core disciples of the inner sect, only the second-line recruits of the eighth and ninth ranks remained in their hometown.
The core disciples have a high level of cultivation, but they don’t cultivate military formations. The recruits have never seen blood, and they are easy to collapse directly on the battlefield.
Forced to go south so far, but didn't want to go all out, so he made a deal with the barbarian king.
In their perspective, it is impossible for the barbarian king to disagree with their charity.
The reason why the barbarians dared to take a detour to the south was because of the blizzard, which brought them an almost crushing advantage.
But when the Beifeng Army and the Black Scale Army went south to join forces with them, a cloud qi bomb dispersed the clouds, and 700,000 troops formed an army formation. Without the protection of the large moat, the wall would collapse.
And now,
The third Yunqi bomb was indeed detonated.
But there was a slight error from their expected position.
Not in Beifeng, but Hou Ting.
Having fought in the northern border for decades, they certainly understand what this means.
In the dead silence,
The old man on the main seat,
The Supreme Elder of Lingshui Palace, Qian Shuisheng finally spoke out:
"Everyone, tell me what you think now."
It's just that after he finished speaking, the silence remained.
For a while,
A female general on the left suddenly stood up and cupped her hands at the old man on the main seat.
The woman is slender and relatively short, but her appearance is not ordinary, with snow-skinned and flowery appearance, eyebrows like emerald feathers, and her voice is as sweet as a silver bell:
"General Qian, I thought this was a plan by Marquis Wu Cheng or that woman Lou Ji to slow down the troops. There was no news of Hou Ting's fall from my Xuepo Valley contact point outside Houting County."
Hearing the woman's voice, a man with a scar on his cheek raised his eyebrows, pondered for a moment, and said:
"Qingfeng made some sense. The time was not right at all. The Black Scale Army and Beifeng Army were far away in Dali Mountain. Even with cavalry, it would still take at least two to three days for them to reach the Houting area."
Qian Shuisheng, who has white beard and hair, smiled kindly when he heard the words, stroked his white beard, and nodded slightly:
"It is indeed possible."
Pausing for a moment, Qian Shuisheng's eyes that were slightly muddy due to old age became sharp instantly:
"But even if it is true as you two said, who will contact the barbarian king? Who will make the barbarian king believe us?"
said,
He glanced at the generals in the tent:
"Hehe. If you stood in the position of the barbarian king, would you rush to send troops to the north? I don't think so? At the very least, I will send a strong man with the army to confirm, but this may not be enough time."
The words fell silent.
Time difference.
The condition they offered to the barbarians was to give up the area around Houting County, and let the other party take over all the equipment and the large defensive formation there, so as to stop the returning Black Scale Army and Beifeng Army.
The key to this is the time difference.
Now that a cloud-qi bomb is exploded over there, even if they really don't arrive, they can buy time for their arrival.
It is also obvious to tell the barbarians:
You beat yours, don't come to me.
Thinking deeper,
If your barbarians don't act as soon as possible, the Beifeng Army and the Black Scale Army can bring Yun Qi down at any time to find you.
Just ask if you are afraid?
"Bastard thing!"
A burly man cursed in a low voice: "Marquis Wu Cheng and Zong Qingsheng really have a good plan. This is to let our frontier army face these hundreds of thousands of barbarians alone!"
"Okay." Another middle-aged man with cheeks sighed: "It's useless to talk too much. The most urgent thing now is to think about how to break the situation."
The burly man stared at him and opened his mouth to swear, but he held back, snorted and shut up.
And at this time,
The beautiful female general spoke again: "Today, I am in charge of guarding the camp. The scouts detected a lot of barbarian wolves riding around our camp. It is impossible to determine the location of their main force. The army may be attacked by the barbarians at any time."
Beifeng City is only about forty miles away from their camp, and it can be reached in two quarters of an hour with a normal march, but if they are attacked by barbarians in the middle of the wind and snow during the march, everyone will die together.
Forty miles away, close in sight, yet far away in the sky.
The middle-aged man with cheeks hesitated for a moment and said in a low voice:
"Nowadays, our camp's defense capabilities are almost equivalent to none. Anyone who has stock will take it out. We need to reinforce the camp. The pattern masters accompanying the army should seize the time to engrave some simple defensive patterns to prevent those barbarians from attacking the camp."
The scarred man suddenly sneered and said:
"Fortify the camp?"
The middle-aged man with cheeks frowned and stared at the man with the scarred face:
"Why, General Hou thinks we should not reinforce the camp?"
The man with the scar shook his head slowly and smiled:
"Of course Hou has no objection. We still have some materials for strengthening the camp in Huangyue Palace. The rest of Houting County was repaired before. Some materials from your other sects should be able to improve the defense ability of the camp by an order of magnitude."
said,
The man with the scar stared at the middle-aged man with cheeks: "But the question is. How much food do we have?"
Hearing this, the Lord turned all the people in the tent to look at the first Qianshuisheng.
Facing the eyes of the generals, Qian Shuisheng pondered for a moment, and said in a low voice:
"In order to let the barbarians go north, we provided them with one-third of the supplies. Today's food, grass and luggage are probably enough to supply our army for 20 years. The reduced ration can last for about a month. If you are willing to slaughter the cavalry, beasts and horses, you should be able to last longer."
“.”
January.
These words made some of the generals present start to have crooked thoughts.
Compared to the vertically centralized command system of the Black Scale Guard or Beifeng Army, their side is more like a coalition force, which was forced to form a coalition due to external pressure.
was quiet for a long time,
A gentle voice suddenly asked:
"What about the barbarians and the court?"
Qian Shuisheng glanced at the person who spoke, and the other person was the only person present who was not from the northern sect.
Wan Yaomen.
As long as there is a war, they are basically there.
came to do business.
Responsible for healing wounded soldiers, as long as you are willing to give money, they can even regenerate low-level soldiers with severed limbs.
certainly,
In addition to giving them money for hiring them, occasionally they also need to capture some living barbarians for them to do medical experiments.
Qian Shuisheng pondered for a moment, and said truthfully:
"The barbarians should have a lot of food and grass. The corpses of the three ice beast colossi, the corpses of the soldiers in Beifeng City, and the corpses of their dead fellow clansmen can last for at least several months."
The barbarians who live in the impenetrable snowfield in the extremely dark land all the year round have no moral values.
To survive is their only morality.
And the lower the bottom line, the more forage you have.
Just like the corpse of a monster is to the human race, the corpse of a human cultivator is a great supplement to the barbarian race.
Speaking of which,
Qian Shuisheng glanced at the north:
"According to our information, the original luggage on Wu Chenghou's side can probably last for about a month, but Wu Yuan should have taken all the luggage that can be taken away from the city before he left."
Hearing this, the handsome young man narrowed his eyes slightly, and said with a smile:
"That is to say, among the three parties in the northern border, our side has the least food and grass?"
“.”
Qian Shuisheng didn't speak, but glanced at the dozen commanders of various schools below.
But following his gaze, everyone bowed their heads
Seeing this, the wrinkles on Qian Shuisheng's face trembled, and he sighed slightly.
Marching and fighting, which family does not have a few Xumi rings in their hands?
As the saying goes, a dead Taoist friend never dies a poor Taoist. In fact, everyone has more or less some food in their hands, but they have to hand it in
Hehe, isn’t this the point where we’re running out of ammunition and food?
Wait until there is really no food, and everyone will talk about it. Maybe they can sell it at a high price and seek compensation after the war.
Looking at the meaning of the commanders below, Qian Shuisheng didn't say much.
Because it doesn't work.
He is the chief general in name only, and the war command has to be negotiated without negotiation, without distribution of benefits, without compensation, and it is very likely that he will fall apart directly.
The handsome young man from Wanyaomen rubbed his brows and said in a low voice:
"That is to say, we can only spend here now? Who has more food and grass?"
Qian Shuisheng let out a breath, leaned back on the back of the chief seat, and asked:
"Our northern sect has paid so much for the overall situation, can't your sects in other places provide support?"
The handsome young man smiled slightly, not in a hurry:
"Elder Qian, haven't the details of the compensation been submitted to you? That much material is enough for you to recover."
Once the imperial court is in trouble, the sects in the place of suffering will contribute their efforts, and the sects in other places will provide materials to compensate afterwards.
When one party is in trouble, all parties support it, which can be regarded as an unwritten tacit understanding between sects.
Qian Shuisheng took a deep look at the young man:
"This seat refers to sending people."
The young man laughed directly without even thinking about it:
"Elder Qian, this is a bad rule. What's more, the roads in the northern border are blocked by heavy snow, and the imperial court has blocked the important official roads going north. Even if we want to reinforce the northern border, we can't come in."
The voice did not fall.
"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"
A series of bangs blasted over the camp of the frontier army, causing the generals in the main camp to frown slightly.
If before this, there was still a sliver of hope in their hearts that the barbarians would use the route to go north, then this hope was completely wiped out at this moment.
The cloud energy bomb detonated over Houting County still made the barbarians choose to deal with the Zongmen frontier army here first.
The miraculously powerful catapult threw countless gravel and various ordnance towards the camp that stretched for several miles, and the high-level cultivators who accompanied the army flew to intercept it, but caught off guard, there were still dozens of boulders in the first round of throwing And the rotting acid beast fell to the ground, causing chaos.
But these chaos were suppressed in an instant, and the commander did not even need to come forward to organize discipline.
Although the Zongmen are experts in internal fighting, it does not affect their abundant martial arts virtues.
Therefore, when the barbarians fired in the second round, no more gravel or rotten beasts could fall into the camp
After a while,
Qian Shuisheng suddenly stood up from the main seat, arched his hands towards the crowd, and said:
"Because of the inaction of the imperial court, we can only wait and see the situation for the time being. Please organize an army to be ready to meet the barbarians' attack at any time."
said,
He suddenly looked sideways at General Hou with the scarred face:
"General Hou, I have troubled you Huangyue Palace to strengthen the camp, and I will definitely double the compensation afterwards."
The man with the scar face grinned when he heard this:
"Elder Qian, don't worry, this is a matter of my Huangyue Palace."
"Report!"
A loud shout suddenly sounded outside the camp, attracting everyone's attention.
Qian Shuisheng was surprised and said:
"Enter."
A man wearing the captain's armor quickly entered the camp, knelt down on one knee, and said directly:
"Elder Qian, someone outside the camp wants to see you and the commanders."
"See me?" Qian Shuisheng frowned: "Who?"
"The person sent by the Xiangguo Mansion." The captain lowered his eyes and reported truthfully: "I said that I want to discuss a business with you."
Hearing this, everyone showed a strange expression.
Qian Shuisheng reacted the fastest, exhaled, smiled lightly and said:
"What are you doing in a daze, please invite that gentleman in."
"Yes." The captain replied, and left the camp in an instant.
After counting interest,
A middle-aged man with an unshaven beard walked into the general's camp under the leadership of the captain.
Looking at the strong men in the tent, Zhou Chen felt his heart skip a beat.
A total of seventeen people, except for the seven great masters, the remaining people have unfathomable cultivation.
Damn it, I wouldn't have played dead if I had known.
At the beginning, I pretended to be dead, but now I am guilty of doing meritorious service, committing crimes.
Cursing inwardly, Zhou Chen said with a smile on his face:
"Yo, good afternoon everyone."
Qian Shuisheng stared at the visitor calmly, and smiled slightly:
"Mr. Zhou, the military situation is urgent now, why don't you just speak up if you have something to say?"
"Elder Qian is really impatient."
Zhou Chen's smile remained unchanged, he cupped his hands, and said with a smile: "Then Zhou won't be a joke anymore, my lord asked me to make a deal with you."
"What deal?" Qian Shuisheng's expression remained unchanged.
Zhou Chen looked around and said slowly:
"My lord knows that Elder Qian and you are in a difficult situation. Let me ask you, is there any need to buy Yunqi bombs?"
(end of this chapter)