Where is my home in the Qinling Mountains where the clouds are crossing? The snow is holding the blue gate and the horses are unable to move forward.

The sky is blue, and the golden sunlight falls on the white snow, dyeing almost the entire mountain top golden. On the top of the mountain farther away, a rainbow stretches across the sky, which is extremely spectacular.

The wind blew slightly, and the snow fell, revealing the pine needles covered by the snow. Perhaps they finally got rid of the weight on their bodies, and the green pine needles danced happily with the wind. On the branches, some thin

Ice edges fell from the branches with a slight cracking sound, puncturing small holes in the snow.

Standing on the top of the mountain, Zhang Cheng stared at Languan across the road in the distance.

The Lan Pass, which was rebuilt on the basis of the Lan Pass in the Qin Dynasty, is naturally incomparable with the past, but it is still a dangerous pass guarding Shangluo to the Guanzhong Plain.

Originally, there were only 500 people stationed here, but as the land of Heluo fell into the hands of the Song army, the number of troops stationed here suddenly doubled.

Today, the Puppet Zhao regime only has Kaifeng and its surrounding areas left in Henan, and on the Shaanxi Road, Jingzhao Mansion has become another place they cannot afford to lose.

Shaanxi Road today is a mess.

Various forces divided it up in an extremely messy way, and everyone had a hand in it, but for a while, no one could do anything about anyone.

In the north, Liu Quanyi of the Puppet Jin Dynasty controlled most of Yan'an Prefecture and part of Suide Prefecture, while Zhang Yunsheng, the general under the command of Xiao Ding, the king of Great Xia, used Luowu City as a base to constantly invade Hengshan and fight against Liu's forces in Suide.

It's overwhelming.

In the northwest direction, it is the traditional sphere of influence of the Western Army. Dingbiancheng, Shentangbao, Huanzhou, and Qingzhou are all under the control of the Western Army.

Tongzhou, Huazhou and Yaozhou in the southeast, including Jingzhao Mansion, were in the hands of Zhao Guoquzhen.

Li Chunfeng, who was on the Qinfeng Road in the past, was hesitant. Because he was worried about the Liao Kingdom, which was the main backer behind Jin and Zhao, and was worried that the Western Army Xiao Ding would send troops to annex his territory, he secretly had some connections with the Liao Kingdom. Unexpectedly, there was no one in this place.

Take action. But as the situation changed, the New Song Dynasty, which had its capital in Jiangning Prefecture, won one victory after another on the battlefield. After defeating Qi and Zhao in a state of embarrassment, and even the Liao Kingdom suffered heavy losses, Li Chunfeng finally could no longer hold back.

He started to reach out to this area.

At this time, he had nominally surrendered to the New Song Dynasty regime in Jiangning, and reached a mutual alliance agreement with Xiao Ding, the king of Great Xia. He began to march eastward with confidence, but now he has occupied Ningzhou, Pizhou and other places.

.

On the road of Shaanxi, heroes gathered together, using their own methods to gain maximum benefits.

Among this group of people, the most powerful one is undoubtedly the King of Great Xia, Xiao Ding.

But in fact, he was the one who was least able to show off his skills in this area.

To the northeast, Xiao Ding must confront Yelu Huan on the Xijing Road.

To the northwest, King Yelumin of the Liao Army Zhenbei was competing with Xiao Ding for the Western Region.

The main force of the Western Army is basically concentrated in these two places.

This forced the Western Army to remain on the defensive in the south. Even if Zhang Yunsheng attacked repeatedly, he would only use offense instead of defense to avoid being too passive.

In this chaotic situation, there is another force that no one dares to despise, and that is Zhang Cheng, who was governed by the Shaanxi Road Capital of the former Song Dynasty.

There was a great change that year. The Song army was first defeated by the Western army on the Shaanxi Road, and then was betrayed by Hebei. The Liao army suddenly arrived, and almost all the hundreds of thousands of Song troops were destroyed on the Shaanxi Road and Hedong Road. In the end, Zhang Cheng led

They fled all the way into the Qinling Mountains with some of their close friends. However, with the fall of Tokyo, these people were unable to return home and could only occupy the Qinling Mountains and became bandits.

Over the past few years, several major forces competing with each other have made the people in this area miserable. More and more people have fled into the mountains because they could not survive. This has made Zhang Cheng's strength grow step by step.

From the initial number of thousands of men, it has expanded to the number of thousands of combatable soldiers now.

And the family members, old and weak, who were ten times as many as the soldiers, reclaimed wasteland in the Qinling Mountains, farmed, gathered, and hunted, forming a line of their own.

Of course, these outputs were far from enough, so Zhang Cheng led his troops down the mountain from time to time to attack surrounding forces and seize supplies to strengthen himself.

Cui Ang went into the mountain to suppress him, and later Qu Zhen also went to the mountain to suppress him, but without exception, they were all defeated by Zhang Cheng. In addition to sending food, grass, heads, and armor and weapons, the pseudo-Zhao had no regard for this force.

The fierce bandits entrenched in the Qinling Mountains are helpless.

In the end, they could only hold on to Languan to prevent Zhang Cheng from coveting Lantian County and plundering Jingzhao Mansion.

As Zhang Cheng's strength grew step by step, he gradually became the target of various forces to win over him.

Zhao State, Jin State and even Liao State Zhennan King Yeluzhen personally sent envoys to say surrender.

Jiang Ning was naturally unwilling to be outdone. Zhiqiuyuan, who collects external intelligence in the Overwatch Council, has not relaxed his efforts to infiltrate this place.

And Li Chunfeng, of course, has now joined in.

Even Li Shilong, the governor of Yizhou Road, sent people over to form an alliance with Zhang Cheng.

Only the Western Army did not send anyone.

Probably everyone in the Western Army knew that Zhang Cheng might defect to any party, but he would never defect to the Western Army.

Because Zhang Cheng's father, Zhang Chao, the great captain of the Song Dynasty, died at the hands of Xiao Ding, the king of the Great Xia Dynasty.

Although it was Zhang Chao who intentionally asked for death at that time, Xiao Ding only fulfilled his wish.

But Zhang Chao was shot to death by Xiao Ding after all.

At that time, thousands of people on the battlefield could see clearly.

So, how could Zhang Cheng bow to the enemy who killed his father?

"It's not easy to fight!" Gan Quan shook his head repeatedly: "There is no attack surface at all. It can be said that one man is the barrier and ten thousand men can't break it. Taiwei, instead of attacking here, we might as well take a detour. It doesn't have to be necessary.

Let’s hit Lantian County!”

"If we capture Lantian, we can approach Jingzhao Mansion with lightning speed!" Zhang Chao has grown a long beard. He is a few years older than Xiao Cheng. He was also a well-known dandy in Tokyo at that time. Together with Luo

Together with Luo Gang, he left his reputation in the brothel. But now he looks very old. Not only compared with Xiao Cheng, but also compared with Luo Gang who was of the same age, he looks even older.

He is one round older than the other party, and seems to be two generations older.

"Then we can only select the elite and launch a surprise attack!" Gan Quan said: "But there are thousands of people guarding Languan now. If there are more people, it is impossible to make a surprise attack. If there are less people, it will be like a meat bun beating a dog."

"Catch a few tongues first, and then ask about the situation!" Zhang Chao waved his hand. "Didn't you say that these dogs often come out to hunt?"

"It might alert them!"

"After asking for a confession, I threw it into the forest with a slap on the neck. It won't take long for the jackals, tigers and leopards to come and clean it up. Even if they find it, they will just think that they are out of luck and were attacked by wild beasts." Zhang

Cheng smiled coldly.

"I understand, I'll do it right away!"

After one night, Zhang Cheng, Gan Quan and others started to return to the camp.

The basic situation of Languan was finally figured out.

There came two war camps with a thousand men.

Languan, which is said to be guarded by two battle camps, only has more than 600 people.

Xiang Si, the commander-in-chief of Zhao State stationed here, actually took up the vacancies of nearly 400 people. What surprised Gan Quan and others even more was that these people stationed here now even have supply problems.

Before the heavy snow closed the mountains, the food supply was not sufficient, or it must have been sufficient, but without some people taking part in the corruption, the survival of hundreds of soldiers in Languan was now a problem.

After clarifying these situations, many generals finally no longer hesitated at all about conquering Lan Pass.

No matter how dangerous the pass is, it still needs people to guard it.

If a person is dying, what's the use of being in jail again?

A group of guys who don't even have enough to eat, do you expect them to fight to the death?

In the valley bordered by two mountains, rows of thatched huts and wooden houses appeared in everyone's sight, and everyone had happy smiles on their faces.

Going home is always happy.

Over the past few years, this place has become their home.

In this valley, nearly two thousand soldiers and tens of thousands of their family members gathered.

Fields have been cultivated from the bottom of the valley to the hillside, and crops are planted in spring and harvested in autumn. The mountain spring water at the bottom of the valley ensures that there is enough water for irrigating these crops.

Even if it is freezing cold, no one dares to neglect at all. Everyone has their own things to do. Even the children are busy. Even if they dig out a nest of field mice, it is still a big gain.

Here, nothing can be wasted.

And everything just revolves around the theme of surviving.

"The lieutenant is back?" Seeing Zhang Cheng and his party, some people waved their arms happily and said hello.

For these people, just surviving is pretty good.

And their survival depends entirely on the man in front of them.

Most of them are sitting still, but there are still many people who are working hard for everyone's survival.

Someone was cutting the vines collected in bundles into small pieces, and then beating them in a stone trough. Milky white juice flowed out of it. The weather was very cold, and the juice quickly condensed into pieces.

These are all food, and they are good food, but the yield is too low.

The hammered canes turned into silk and linen, which can also be used. Whether you use them to twist hemp rope or weave hemp clothes, in short, they can be used.

There are also people who are carefully peeling pine nuts and other collected fruits. Good things like this will definitely be preserved and given priority to strong laborers.

There were originally some pigs and sheep raised in the mountains, but after the winter came, they were all killed. There was nothing for them to eat. Once they lost weight and were skinny and bones, it was no longer worthwhile.

Waving to these people, Zhang Cheng walked all the way back to his residence.

It was a large cave. Now the ground in the cave was first covered with a thick layer of sand, and then a layer of wooden boards. Even the walls and top of the cave were also nailed with wooden boards, and then again
To be continued...