In the early morning, He Qizhou was awakened by the majestic neighing of a horse. It was the cry of the snow dragon horse. He Qizhou flew to the stable not far away, only to see Deshan holding his stomach and falling to the ground. There was a big brush and a horse on the ground.
A knife that was more than a foot long. The snow dragon horse kept stomping around in the fence and stopped roaring when he saw He Qizhou coming over.
He Qizhou looked at Deshan with some suspicion. Deshan stood up with difficulty and said: "This Tianma is too eye-catching. I wanted to help it tidy up its hair, but I didn't expect that after raising horses for decades, it was kicked by it."
He Qizhou understood the whole story and quickly apologized to Deshan and stepped forward to stabilize the snow dragon horse. Deshan skillfully shaved off the long hair on the snow dragon horse's calves, put on leggings, combed and trimmed the mane on the neck, and trimmed the snow dragon horse's legs.
The snakeskin armor was bundled and placed behind the saddle. Half an hour later, the snow dragon horse was no different from an ordinary shepherd's mount except for its thicker legs and larger horseshoes. People who are not proficient in horse physiognomy would really not be able to tell.
What's the difference.
Other people in the tribe also got up early, the women started cooking, and the men started busy with the food of the animals. The Pangu people all eat two meals a day, and breakfast does not start until midnight. Not long after breakfast, near noon, suddenly
There was a loud sound of horse hooves in the southwest, and the clan members stopped what they were doing and looked towards the mountain ridge in the southwest. They saw a cavalry team of several hundred people roaring from the hillside.
Deshan hurriedly asked He Qizhou to return to his tent, saying that the imperial cavalry was coming, and he led several tribesmen to greet them.
"Who is Deshan?" the leader ran to the camp and shouted.
"It's me, sir." Tokuyama stepped forward quickly and replied.
"Deshan, I heard that your family was harmed by the Qi people. Our court cannot sit idly by and do nothing. The army will avenge you. This military master wants to ask you something, and you must answer it truthfully."
The leading officer walked out on horseback, wearing only regular clothes instead of the armor like the others.
"It's the county magistrate. We have killed all the Qi soldiers who killed my people. There is no need for the court to take revenge. Do you think we should be rewarded for killing more than a dozen Qi soldiers? There are only so many people in our clan now.
, can you exempt me from some taxes?" Tokuyama replied painfully.
"That's right, that's right, we have informed the county guard. The county said that you can be exempted from 30% of this increase in taxes. However, your tribe still occupies such a large pasture, and next year's tax will not be reduced. There is also good news.
I can tell you that hundreds of people from your tribe have signed up to join the army, and your family’s military service is temporarily exempted,” said the county magistrate.
"Chief, I also want to join the army."
"I want to go too!"
Several people behind Tokuyama shouted.
"Then you let me take care of the animals alone, move them around, and pay the taxes..." Tokuyama said with some excitement.
Seeing Tokuyama's anger, the young men were speechless for a moment.
"Deshan, what are you doing? At worst, you can sell all these animals and the court will buy you a house in the city..." the county magistrate advised.
"Have you finished speaking? I still have something to ask." The officer behind the county magistrate said in a muffled voice, already extremely impatient in his heart.
"Okay, okay, this low-ranking official deserves to die, sir, please ask questions first." The county magistrate said while humbly retreating.
The officer asked: "You said you killed all those Qi soldiers? Are you sure no one escaped?"
"Well, we just happened to be returning from grazing. When the people in the camp found out, they all ran away in the direction where the adults came from. When we chased after them, we saw clearly that there were seventeen people in total." Tokuyama said.
"How many of you are there? Call everyone in the camp!" the officer ordered.
"Go, ask everyone to come out, ask Deren to stop cleaning the cow dung, change clothes and come here quickly." Deshan ordered the young man behind him. Dehai is Dehai's eldest son, the person He Qizhou wants to impersonate, Deshan
Of course the young man understood what the clan leader meant and went to call the others separately. Of course, he also notified He Qizhou and Xu Muxue to put on herders' clothes and come out. The camp was so big that if the army found someone hiding, it would be difficult to explain.
Soon everyone, including the lady, came to the officer. He Qizhou finally helped Xu Muxue and walked out. However, he was shocked when he saw a few men in black behind the officer. The black armor was different from that of the officer.
The Iron Stone King Kong who assassinated Han Chong in the Shannan Inn on the same day was exactly the same, and among the hundreds of cavalry, there were hundreds of people dressed in black. Those might be the elite Iron Stone Guards in Wushi's hands! It seems that these people are chasing
Gan Xing's Zhou Dynasty army.
As expected by He Qizhou, the leading officer asked: "Did you know that you killed all the elites of the Qi army? Just a dozen of you? Besides, didn't you say that all the female relatives were dead? Why are there so many women?
?”
"Sir, we are so eager for revenge that we don't care whether they are elites or not. We just want to kill these beasts even if we risk our lives!" Tokuyama said angrily: "We also killed and injured many people during the pursuit. As for the female relatives...
"
The lady said: "I am the wife of leader Tuoba. I was married to the De family. When the family was in trouble, I brought some people over to help."
"That's right, then you can express your condolences. Alas, he ran away again!" The officer sighed, turned his horse's head and prepared to leave.
He Qizhou was just about to breathe a sigh of relief when he heard someone say: "Wait a minute!"
The officer stopped and frowned: "We stopped so many times along the way, what's the matter now?"
A middle-aged man wearing a green robe and a layer of light armor jumped off his horse, walked up to the officer, and said humbly: "The general has traveled thousands of miles, please allow me to delay for a while, just think of it as a rest."
"Put it out!" the officer shouted in a low voice, obviously very angry with this Qinglong Temple official who kept interfering in his command.
"Chief Deshan, I am Ouyang Xuan, the captain of the Xiazhou Division of Qinglong Temple Tutang. Please bring all the horses of Qi Bing over. These must be handed over to the court! I advise you not to keep a few of them.
Qi Ren's horses are different from ours." Ouyang Xuan said with a smile.
"You!" Deshan gritted his teeth and wanted to argue, but he finally held back and waved his hand to ask someone to fetch the horses. Although the value of these horses far exceeded the 30% tax deduction; even though his family had already paid
The price was huge, but he also knew the other party's background. He was Tutang's largest official in Xiazhou and one of the few people with power second only to Assassin. He could not bargain with the other party at all.
A total of twenty-two horses were brought in. Because Gan Xing and others ran fast and escaped one by one, several horses did not have time to untie the reins. When they saw the horses, they were still laughing at Ouyang in their hearts.
The officers who were greedy for money were also moved, because the quality of these horses was obviously much higher than the ordinary Qi army mounts.
Ouyang Xuan glanced at the officer behind him with a hint of pride and asked, "Deshan, are you sure you killed everyone?"
"Sure!"
"Have you dragged a few corpses back and broken them into thousands of pieces?"
"No, letting vultures and wild beasts eat the corpses is already the biggest punishment we can give our enemies." Tokuyama said.
"How many people in your clan have practiced internal martial arts?" Ouyang Xuan's questions came one after another quickly, not allowing Deshan to think for a moment.
"not a single one."
"Have you ever searched Qi Bing's belongings?"
"No, they didn't even take their bows or swords!"
"Why didn't you tell the whereabouts of that high official? How many benefits did he promise you? Didn't you even take revenge for money?" Ouyang Xuan had already determined that the deceased were Gan Xing's personal guards, and Gan Xing must be among these people.
In the meantime, if Gan Xing escapes alone or with a few people, the De family is eager for revenge and will not hide it from the court in any case. The most likely situation now is that there are masters hiding in the De family, catching Gan Xing and forcing Gan Xing to surrender.
As for the sky-high compensation, how to get the ransom, how could the private road selling salt escape the eyes of Qinglong Temple? It's just that selling private salt is beneficial to many people, so they just turned a blind eye.
"What high official? If this happened to your family and you met such a high official who is worse than a beast, would you still be able to bear to spare his life?" Deshan said angrily, no longer caring about Ouyang Xuan's identity.
"Insolent!" one of Ouyang Xuan's followers shouted sharply.
"Forget it." Ouyang Xuan waved his hands and said: "Deshan, you are lying! I know that your people are proficient in riding and shooting, but those Qi soldiers are good at martial arts and have armor on them. I have checked several abandoned corpses on the road. Just rely on
You can't do it."
"We can do it!" Tokuyama argued.
"Okay! Return the people, bring the Maqi people's straight sword and the armor!" Ouyang Xuan shouted: "Tie the armor to the wooden post and give the straight sword to Chief Deshan."
In the cold wind, Deshan felt that sweat began to form on his forehead and his back was already soaked. The other party had obviously inspected Qi Bing's body and wanted him to shoot through the armor like He Qizhou did. It seemed that he could not do it at all.
Seeing that his men had tied up Qi Ren's armor, Ouyang Xuan said:
"Chief, we found a total of twelve corpses on the road. Three of them were shot through the armor, four were shot in the head and neck, four had their head and neck cut off, and one had his sternum broken. What are you doing now?
Let the tribesmen try to see if they can shoot through the armor with your arrows. Of course, because most of them are running, they need to be very accurate. Let’s do this. Ten feet away from the wooden pillar, I will draw a palm-sized one on the armor.
Mark, if you can hit it and penetrate it, I will believe in your shooting skills. In addition, the people who were slashed all died from this straight knife. The blade is sharp to the bone. If any of you can cut off this one-foot-thick stick with one knife.
If you have a wooden pole, I will believe you, otherwise, I will take you back to Tutang Yamen to question you slowly."
After Ouyang Xuan said that, the field fell silent for a moment. The officer also doubted the ability of the Deshan family, but felt that there was no need for the other party to lie, so he did not go into details. He just thought that Gan Xing had run away, and after hearing Ouyang Xuan's words