Along the way, there were villages and forts that were in a mess. Although this front line wasn't in the path of Beimang's 20,000 men, Hui Lilu and Lang Sien had lost close to a thousand men after the battle. These stragglers would flee at the mere sight of forty to fifty Beimang cavalry. However, the small villages to the north of the Hengshui River had suffered a calamity. The six hundred Hengshui cavalry had been out in pursuit for the past few days, but after the initial panic, groups of twenty to thirty Mang cavalry continued to converge. Among them, there was a group of two hundred Beimang cavalry that had clashed head-on with the Hengshui cavalry. Both sides had suffered heavy losses. Moreover, in the desert beyond the Great Wall, not to mention a few hundred or a few dozen cavalry, even if there were thousands or tens of thousands of cavalry, it would be like searching for a needle in a haystack once they left the city passes. When Yu Luandao's four hundred elite scouts encountered the Beimang cavalry in the wilderness, they didn't take the initiative to attack. They were only responsible for gathering intelligence. The Mang cavalry dared to fight with the Hengshui cavalry, but when they saw the Youzhou cavalry equipped with light crossbows and sabers, they took the initiative to retreat far away even though they had an absolute advantage in numbers. Generally speaking, they minded their own business. However, if the Youzhou scouts encountered a small group of Mang cavalry and casually gained some military merit, neither Yu Luandao nor the lieutenant general had any objections. After all, why would they need a reason to kill a few more Beimang barbarians?
However, the reason why Yu Luandao was so quiet today was because out of the five scouts, only one of them had returned to Silver Sparrow City to bring back the latest news. This news couldn't even be considered a military intelligence of any significance. That scout said that they had encountered sixty Northern Mang barbarians in a village outside the city. According to the rules of the Northern Liang's scouts, each team would fight against one target. Their side only needed to send back information. Due to the great disparity in numbers, they would not have to bear the crime of 'retreating without fighting'. Moreover, these Youzhou scouts had just returned from further north. They weren't supposed to fight with the Beimang cavalry in the first place. They needed to return to the city immediately and pass on the military intelligence to the cavalry camp. Yu Luandao wasn't just angry at the captain for disobeying the regulations, he felt more helpless. In Beiliang, where military law was the most important, those four scouts might not even be able to keep the military merit they had earned. Yu Luandao didn't know how to report this to the King of Beiliang, who was in the Youzhou cavalry. In the Cool Border Army, retreating from battle, lying about military intelligence, and killing innocent people were the three capital crimes. However, disobeying regulations were also crimes..........
The vice general of Youqi, Shi Yulu, glanced at the four strange riders behind the troop and whispered to Yu Luandao, "The four scouts must have died in battle. How do we report this?"
Yu Luandao showed a rare pained expression. "Report it as it is."
As the leader of the four hundred scouts, if Fan Fen had heard such cold-blooded words before the battle of Ji Bei, he would have long cursed and scolded Yu Luandao. But after the battle, all the soldiers of You Province now had great admiration for Yu Luandao. Fan Fen whispered, "General Yu, can't you make an exception? How about we ignore their previous military merit and just report that 'they encountered a large group of Mang cavalry and four of them died on their way back to the south'? "
Yu Luandao didn't say anything.
The cavalry galloped into the village near the river. The corpses of the villagers could be seen everywhere. The village, which should have had forty to fifty families, was now completely deserted. Only a few willows with bent branches outside the village were spitting out a few patches of green in this early spring when all living things should be growing.
On the wheat drying field in front of a cottage to the north of the village, they saw the corpses of a family of five. Two old men were hacked to death by the Beimang war sabers at the door. The middle-aged man who was supposed to go to the fields to sow wheat was still clutching his hoe after he died. His son's head was right in front of him. The young headless body was closer to his mother. The woman was stripped naked and raped by the Beimang cavalry. Her limbs were chopped off.
The young scout sobbed and said, "The sergeant couldn't stand it and asked me to bring the military intelligence back to Silver Sparrow City. Then he said that he died in battle further north and asked me to ignore the three of them. I didn't want to leave, so the sergeant kicked me and said that all five of them died here. What should we do about the military intelligence?! "
On the wheat drying field, the cold blades and light crossbows of the four Youzhou scouts were taken away. Their armors were taken away, and only four corpses were left.
One of them died under the mud wall. The arm holding the blade was chopped off by the Beimang cavalry and placed on his head. Two of them died on the wheat drying field. The sergeant's corpse was tied to a long bench and used as a target. His body was full of bloody holes caused by arrows.
Yu Luandao, Shi Yulu, and Fan Fen didn't say anything.
It wasn't that they hadn't seen crueler scenes. In the north of Beiliang, when was there not a year where one side didn't die? Which one of them hadn't collected the corpses of their fellow Beiliang soldiers?
However, this wasn't Beiliang. This was Ji Province!
The old scout, Fan Fen, who could clearly call out the names of the four men, said softly with reddened eyes, "It's not worth it. You didn't die for anything …"
Then, Fan Fen saw the young man with the thick fur coat walking towards the sergeant's corpse. Fan Fen strode forward and wanted to push the young man away. 'I didn't see you when we were fighting on the battlefield. Now that the war is over, you're still wearing a fur coat that the four of us who died in battle couldn't even afford in their entire lives. Why are you pretending to be a good person?! I don't care which noble family you're from in Ji Province! Fan Fen stretched out his hand and shouted, "Get lost! As long as Beiliang isn't completely wiped out, outsiders like you won't have the chance to collect our corpses! "
But Fan Fen suddenly realized that he couldn't push the young man away.
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