socalfunplaces Chapter 278 No Escape!
Chapter 278 No Escape!
"General, I would like to know to what official rank the head of the Qiang leader can advance?" Lu Ze looked at the soldiers who were cleaning up the battlefield, turned around and asked Meng Ying.
Meng Ying had a low conversation with the messenger, asking him to instruct the captured Qiang women and children to pack up their homes and follow the army back to Fuhan City. Then he turned around and thought for a moment, "Generally speaking, there are two levels. What's the point?" he said.
"Only two levels?" Lu Ze frowned slightly.
Is it just two ranks? This is considered too little, is it so? Hearing this, Meng Ying smiled and asked, "An official position with two ranks of military merit can get 200 hectares of land, are you still not satisfied?"
Lu Ze raised his fist and replied with a bitter smile: "Lu Ze, you don't know. My family suffered misfortune from others, and the whole family was punished and demoted to slaves, doing hard labor in Shanglin Garden."
"Although your majesty granted pardons and spared the elders of the family, the rest of the youth were not pardoned, and had to pay money to appease the demands of the law."
"However, if you want to redeem your freedom as a citizen, each person needs to spend at least 5,000 gold coins to do this. In addition, slaves with professional skills cannot redeem themselves and regain their freedom!"
"For this reason, both sisters were sent to the Chang'an Palace to work as spinners."
"Only by virtue of their military merit can their sins be absolved."
"According to Qin law, only those who return two levels of honors are eligible to redeem their family members and restore their freedom."
When Lu Ze finished his narration, tears flashed in his eyes. Although he knew that his sisters had told them about the letter they received from the palace, saying that they were doing well and they didn't need to worry about them, how could Lu Ze, their brother, not feel anything?
Meng Ying gently stroked Lu Ze's shoulder and finally chose to leave quietly. Although facing Lu Ze's unexpected first-class title and the fact that he killed the leader of the Qiang people, Meng Ying remained calm. In fact, the inner entanglement and emotion could not be concealed.
After all, in the game of power, it is not easy to obtain the first-class title. It symbolizes the improvement of strength and the recognition of honor, and its value cannot be underestimated. In her heart, Meng Ying still has a deep recognition and affirmation of this.
It was only because of the family glory accumulated over generations and the authority under Qin law that Meng Ying was unwilling to compete with Lu Ze for credit.
When she stopped to watch a soldier, Meng Ying asked curiously, "Is that girl pretty?"
"Beautiful, very beautiful!" The soldier drooled, his eyes fixed on a Xiqiang girl with a plump butt and long legs.
"Four thousand five hundred coins, take her away as your wife!"
Amidst a string of jokes, Meng Ying angrily said, "Everything can be taken away. Anything that cannot be taken away will be burned!"
After the soldier left in response, Meng Ying pulled Wu Shida up and asked in a low voice: "Da'er, tell me, are you lost?"
"General, what nonsense are you talking about!" Wu Shida was at a loss for words. "I'm already familiar with this route! You're a foreigner, and you've been walking in this vast barbaric area for months, so you naturally don't know much about it."
"There are actually no so-called roads to follow in the Savage Zone. Perhaps the road we walked on last year was completely covered by lush trees after a heavy rain this summer!"
"Because of this, the Qiang and Xiongnu people often used some signs, such as a piece of scattered stones or animal bones on branches to locate their directions..."
"However, in front of this Qiang tribe, the situation is much more complicated than I expected!"
After thinking for a while, Meng Ying seemed to have realized something and asked, "How far is it to where we are going?"
He observed from afar the Qiang prisoners on the hillside gathering cattle under the supervision of herders, and thought that if the location was too far away from the pasture to be burned, "there would only be two options left - execute the prisoners or destroy their pastures." He concluded.
After thinking for a while, Guang Shida answered firmly, "It's not far. From here, head north and west and cross two small hills, and you will reach your destination!"
"Over two small hills?" Meng Ying wondered. After going deep into the heartland of the Qiang people, he had indeed understood the truth of what Fusu said back then: "Even if you run your horses to pieces, you can't see the goal." This meant that it would take at least a whole day's journey to cross the two mountains.
In his thoughts, "We don't need to move forward." "Look at the wind speed and trend now." In his opinion, if a big fire is lit on the opposite mountaintop now, with the help of the wind, the fire can sweep across the entire grassland in the blink of an eye...
He picked up a handful of soil, felt and determined the current wind direction, turned to the withered grass on the distant hill, and nodded. He said to himself, "Even if it doesn't comply with combat orders, it can be considered as fulfilling the mission... Yes, be careful not to hurt your own people when setting fire."
Then he asked, "Have you confirmed it? To which ethnic group do the Qiang people in this place belong?"
Receiving a positive answer - "This is the part we are familiar with, the leader is called Jiang Yang," Wu Shida replied. "Jiang, Shaodang Qiang?" This combination raises the question in people's minds, "How did they come to this area?"
It is said that this group of Qiang people live in Guanggu in the north of Texas?
Countless questions came to Meng Ying's mind, and he recalled the historical records he had read when he was in the Qin State: If these descendants of the Qiang were called "Jiang", then they were the descendants of Emperor Yan.
“队长，已经大致完成人财物清单。“一个千长走到前头施了个礼说，“总共斩杀敌首43个级别，俘虏青壮男丁95人，老年人妇女儿童322人。我们共收缴了155头牛、124匹马及各种羊2477只。还有运牛车的15量车和254件铜质武器。“
There were fewer horses. This was inevitable. During the siege, everyone was too busy looting. It was impossible to distract themselves from looking for supplies... Meng Ying nodded slightly. Then he asked, "Are there any casualties in our army?"
The captain looked a little hesitant. He twitched his lips and answered, "There are 15 lightly injured. Most of them were arrow wounds. There is only one seriously injured patient. He fell off his horse during the second charge. His own horse crushed his arm... However, his injury has been treated now, and he is not disabled. He will recover after a period of rest..."
He rushed down but got injured, and even got his arm stepped on by the horse... It made him feel mixed emotions. Then a heavy sigh floated out. Without the universal use of horse hooves, the riders were mainly responsible for harassment and interception tasks, and would not actively attack the enemy's infantry group structure. Although they were speeding up their training along the way, accidents still occurred.
Meng Ying shook his head helplessly. Then he smiled to cover up his surprise, because he knew that his first battle was not as good as his father's. But... according to the laws of Qin, he had already won this battle.
Even if his position could not be promoted to a high rank, the status of those who followed him and his instructors would be promoted according to their military merits. Qin law clearly stated that in battle, the accumulation of military merits was not only reflected by the number of beheadings, but also included the contribution value of the group's results.
In fact, these people did not have the opportunity to kill the enemy personally (their swords might not be strong enough to kill an enemy soldier), and they did not have enough conditions to kill the enemy's head, so after this war, all those who participated in the battle could upgrade their level and receive certain rewards.
These rewards were for capturing a large number of prisoners and confiscating supplies. Two hours later, the Qiang people were obediently harnessed to the ox carts to carry the things needed for the camp, and then driven by the Qin cavalry, walking carefully behind the ox carts. The raging fire behind them, after engulfing the winter camp, gradually swept across the distant hills under the guidance of the howling autumn wind from the west.
After a while, Meng Yingqi led a group of cavalry to the front of the team and reorganized according to his dispatch. Lu Ze led more than 20 knights and instructor Wu Da to lead the way;
Each of them led fifty knights to patrol the two wings of the group;
Meng Ying personally led the team and stood at the end, supervising the Qiang captives and livestock. The horses were led by two knights from the Rongdi tribe and placed at the end of the team.
This arrangement prevented the Qiang people from reaching their weapons and trapped them in the middle, and also kept them away from the herd of horses. Even if they wanted to escape, they could not break through the attack range of the Qin crossbow.
At sunset, Meng Ying divided the camp into three areas based on the Qiang men's habit of confrontation and women's habit of fleeing.
One of them was an area where cattle, sheep and Qiang children were stored, guarded by fifty cavalrymen led by Lu Ze; the other was an area where horses were stored, guarded by ten cavalrymen led by Wu Shida. They only needed to keep an eye on a few leading horses to prevent the horses from running away.
In the last camp, adult Qiang men were imprisoned.
The nomadic peoples are strong and cannot be easily ignored, so the task of this area was assigned to Meng Ying personally.
First, he used his personal force to ensure that the Qiang people would not have any other ideas. Secondly, he demonstrated deterrence among the warriors to prevent the soldiers from taking bad actions against his female members in the dark.
After all, not all current soldiers are moral role models.
The team traveled safely for three days, and Meng Ying saw the Qin Dynasty military flag floating in the air from afar.
Soon, more than a thousand cavalrymen, led by Han Xin's Yulin Lang, came with flags rolling.
"Meng Ying! Do you know your mistake?" Han Xin asked loudly with a stern face.
"What did I do wrong?" Meng Ying frowned, looking puzzled.
"General Zuo's order clearly stated that you should go to Qiang territory to set fire to the wilds and return to Fuhan one day in advance. However, you did not return on time. Does this constitute a fault?"
"So, you're here to arrest me?"
"No, I'm not trying to capture you. It's just that General Zuo is worried that you might fall into the hands of the Qiang chieftain and become his son-in-law, so he sent someone to look for you. I happened to be on duty at the entrance of the camp, so I took on the task of looking for you..."
When Han Xin finished speaking, he turned to look enviously at the cattle, sheep and Qiang captives all over the ground.
Han Xin, who also followed Zhang Han, the Protector of the Qiang, in his campaigns, did not encounter any Qiang tribes the last time he set fire to the wasteland.
Alas... this is really fate's choice!