The cold winter has come, and even Bianliang has been covered with heavy snow. The northwest is even more bitterly cold. The sharp north wind blows from morning to night. The cold wind is filled with snow particles. It is as cold as a knife, carrying sand and dust. , penetrate into the bone marrow. At the top of Dunhuang City, Queen Zhou sneezed suddenly as she looked up and down, and unconsciously wrapped her white cloak a little tighter. The maid next to her advised her: "Madam, it's getting late, so go back early."
Zhou Hou shook his head and said nothing. The veil was flicked, revealing Zhaojun's smooth forehead, a few strands of hair, and a pair of scissor-like eyes, looking into the distant sky.
The black city head was gradually covered with a thin layer of snow, and the two maidservants standing behind the battlements and looking into the distance gradually resembled snowmen. But the soldiers guarding the city around didn't dare to come up to persuade him. Chen De and Huang Wen stayed in Bianliang, and the Uighur princess lived in Ganzhou. The only person in Dunhuang who had some relationship with the lord was Mrs. Zhou.
After winter, although the Anxi Army arranged for households to do peripheral work in the craftsmanship field, repair the city walls, practice martial arts and archery, etc. However, households always have more free time than when they are busy with farming. In addition, they spend all day in the walled city looking for fun, so the storyteller's business is booming.
During the years of war and turmoil, the Three Kingdoms version was the most popular. Among the Anxi army, there were Hondanan people, and the others were from the northwest. Naturally, they sided with Liu Guan and Zhang Shu, and were hostile to Cao Cao, who also occupied the Central Plains. There is even a chatterbox that compares Chen De to Liu Xuande, Xingu and Xiao Jiunai are the two generals of Guan and Zhang who are in perfect harmony with their lord, and the issue of who is Zhao Zilong is still in dispute. According to the genealogy of heroes circulated in Gansu and Suzhou, It was Li Si, some in other states said it was Zhang Zhongyao, some said it was Yu Furengui, and for Ma Chao's position, both Yu Furengui and Luo Youtong had their supporters. During this period, the most common sight in the villages in Hexi is that men, women, and children who have been working all day gather in teahouses and taverns, with a pot of tea, two cents of wine, half a plate each of fried peas and spiced melon seeds. I heard what my husband said. After reading the story, everyone debated the ranking of the current five tiger generals with great interest. These explanations of karma are becoming more and more popular, and the generals of the Anxi Army did not stop them. Many officers are still proud of them.
Later, Chen De's female family members were also recruited by good people. Huang Wen and Zhou Hou were attached to become the two wives of Gan Mi, and the Uighur princess was Sun Shangxiang. Those Uighur warriors who joined the Anxi army did not think they were disobedient, but instead fought with the Han army. Let¡¯s discuss who is Zhou Yu and who is Lu Su among the Uighur heroes. Everyone seems to feel that now that Shu and Jiangdong have become one family, it seems that it is just around the corner to wipe out the white-faced and treacherous ministers in the Central Plains.
"When these rumors reached Zhou Hou's ears, she only smiled on the surface. She felt a little angry, a little lost, and more and more uneasy.
Only Xiao Jiu was the only one in the city who knew Zhou Hou¡¯s true identity, and everyone else only thought she was Chen De¡¯s wife. People in this era are not as cruel as later generations. Whether they are Han people or Hu people, they always unconsciously hope to have a wise and powerful leader to take care of them. Chen De and Chen De, who now rely on the hope of the army and people of Anxi, Huang Wen was forced to live in Bianliang, and Chen De and Huang Wen's almost extremely high prestige among the soldiers and civilians of Anxi was naturally inherited by her.
Zhou Hou is not as genial and friendly as Huang Wen. She always wears a gauze veil when she comes in and out, but her behavior is as if it were made in heaven, giving people a sense of grace and beauty. Wherever she appears, she will inevitably become the center of attention. Whether she is blushing over the price of goods, or she is frothing at the mouth as if no one else is around, or even beating and scolding children, when she sees this girl, her whole body is covered from head to toe under Zhaojun's hat. He and the graceful figure under the cloak would unconsciously lower their voices. Men would carry their dirty sleeves behind their backs, women would unconsciously comb their hair secretly, and anyone with a mirror around them would take a look. In short, they all wanted to show themselves decent and polite in front of Mrs. Zhou. . The police officer in charge of public security in Dunhuang City even joked that no matter how commotion the soldiers and civilians were, as soon as Mrs. Zhou arrived, order would be restored immediately, and everyone would become a polite gentleman.
Even Xiao Jiu, who was in charge of Dunhuang, had a respectful and polite attitude when he occasionally met with Queen Zhou, which confused Queen Zhou. Did he respect her as the queen of Jiangnan, or did she really regard herself as a wife of Chen De? . As the soldiers and civilians in Hexi almost regarded her as a symbol of the lord Chen De's stay in Hexi, Zhou Hou would sometimes fall into confusion about her identity. She would pay attention to her appearance, and would even ignore the injustice she occasionally saw. Consciously taking on the role of this lady, she went to solve the problems for these people.
At the top of Dunhuang City, the garrison sergeants looked at Zhou Hou¡¯s background that had almost turned into a snow sculpture with some respect. He knew that his wife was waiting for the return of an army that left Yumen Pass in the west.
Finally, on the windy and snowy horizon in the distance, a red flag jumped out. It was like a ball of fire in the flying sand between the increasingly larger snow flakes, making people's eyes light up. "Madam, they are back!"The maid with purple lips cheered, then frowned. She had stood in the ice and snow for too long, and her feet were already numb from the cold. She stomped twice and immediately felt terrible pain.
Li Lang, the centurion of the Hussars Battalion of the Teaching Rong Army, held the soft rein of the horse with his left hand, and his right hand drooped on the saddle. His body wrapped in a wolfskin cloak was tilted. He is Li Tianhe, whom Li Yu entrusted to Chen De. After arriving in Lanzhou, he changed his name to Li Lang.
Chen De went to Bianliang as a hostage, originally entrusting Li Lang to the township school Jijiu Liang Zuoqiu and Xiao Jiu to teach him together, hoping that he could learn to be an all-rounder in both civil and military affairs. For some reason, Li Lang was disobedient to his father and insisted on joining the army for training. Liang Zuoqiu, who didn't know Li Lang's identity, was very impressed. Xiao Jiu had no choice but to report to Chen De secretly. Chen De thought that Li Lang was already eighteen years old this year and should be able to make his own choices, so he told Xiao Jiu to ask Li Lang to invest. If the military commander with the best military discipline is not capable enough, then he himself has nothing to say.
Since ancient times, the country has been poor in culture and rich in military affairs. Although the Li family of Jinling valued literature over martial arts, the children of wealthy families did not expect to be a scholar, so they did not need to know the classics. Most parents hope that their children can be both civilized and martial arts, and many dandy children also do some things like flying eagles and lackeys in the name of practicing martial arts. . Therefore, this martial arts teacher is the same as Mr. Wen, and every royal family has several of them. When Li Lang was young, he had been taught equestrian archery by the royal family, and he had a solid foundation. After suffering a major change, he practiced even more diligently, and was surrounded by many tough soldiers from the Ya Army Camp asking for advice. Therefore, Li Lang actually passed the selection to teach the army sergeant with only his skill of bow and horse. Moreover, because he was literate in writing and familiar with military books, he was still able to take care of his subordinates. Within a year, he won the first prize with his bravery. He was a captain of ten, and was later elected to be the head of the capital, and a centurion at the age of eighteen. Looking at the Anxi army, he was also an anomaly.
At this time, all the cavalrymen under Li Lang were just like him, exhausted, and some were injured. Several of the horses carried white cloth bags filled with urns on their backs. However, everyone looked excited. Even the flag-bearing soldier, who was so tired that his eyes were almost closed, struggled to raise the flag of the military army forward. The north wind roared, and the flag rolled in the wind, as if it was trying to drag the flag-bearing sergeant along with him. The horse fell to the ground, but the flag was just flying, showing a kind of tenacity.
Arriving at the city, nearly a hundred cavalrymen handed over their seals and slowly passed through the city gate.
For more than a year, he has been operating in the north and south of the Tianshan Mountains. As Chen De had originally expected, the march into the southern foothills of the Tianshan Mountains went very smoothly. The villages and towns in the desert that make a living by oasis agriculture and receiving traders are very welcome to the Anxi Army's return to the Western Regions, because this means that With the re-prosperity of East-West trade, the lives of local residents will become richer. Therefore, the Lianrui Army who was responsible for operating the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains marched westward with only two thousand light troops, and went all the way to the western border of Khotan, and established good contact with Li Shengtian, the leader of Khotan.
The situation at the northern foot of the Tianshan Mountains is more complicated than Chen De thought. Not only are the Gaochang Uighurs supported by the Kara Khanate entrenched in the vast area from Qiuci to Xizhou, but there are also an extremely large number of horse thieves. For many years, the main combat opponent of the Jiao Rong Army was not the Gaochang Uighurs, but the horse thieves who were purging hundreds to thousands of people. The difficulty of suppressing bandits was even greater than that of the hussars conquering the steppe tribes.
Entering the city, Li Lang pulled the face towel used to protect him from the wind and sand to his neck, revealing a handsome face. Under two thick eyebrows, a pair of eyes revealed a mature temperament that was incompatible with his face. If you look closely, you can see that he is very similar to Li Yu, the Duke of Longxi County who lived in Bianliang. With a sharp glance, he saw Zhou Hou, who was hurriedly walking down from the city and looking at him with concern in the crowd. Li Lang's chest felt like burning pain where he was stabbed by the horse thief. His eyes immediately dimmed and he turned elsewhere, as if he had never known Mrs. Zhou.
Inside the gate, hundreds of military family members who had already received the news were waiting dozens of steps away. The rules of the Anxi Army are very strict. Even if the officers and soldiers meet their waiting family members at the city gate, they can only go home after the soldiers return to camp. These family members gather here to wait, just to take a look and confirm their sons and husbands who are leaving for the war. , my father returned safely. Of course, the cavalrymen sitting on their horses would also say hello to the family members standing on both sides of the street. However, when they did not see the family members who had returned safely, some burst into tears on the spot, and some silently took their children back to their houses and waited. The military government confirmed the bad news.
The hussars had no time to stay, and walked straight across the street to the Shazhou Governor's Office where Xiao Jiu's daily office was located. After Li Lang's announcement, he walked inside. It was already dark at that time, and Xiao Jiu was still working in the government office. He had no family, and he dealt with the exchanges between various armies during the day. At night, he sorted out his thoughts and reported important matters to Chen De and Xingu.
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