After passing the Great Wall to the north of Bingzhou, there is an endless grassland. This thousand-mile grassland includes Dingxiang County in the west, Mayi County in the middle and Yanmen County in the east. With Qifubo in Mayi County as the center, it is a grassland with abundant pasture and fertile land, but it is actually a strategic buffer zone for the nomads in the Central Plains dynasty and the northern grasslands.

On this vast grassland, some of the nomadic tribes that were attached, including some small tribes of the Turks and Tielle. However, with the reinforcing of the Turks and the betrayal of Liu Wuzhou, the grassland was once again controlled by the Turks and became the southern sphere of influence of the Turks.

Just before last autumn, the actual control dividing line between the Turks and the Central Plains dynasty had been pushed south to the Zihe line. However, after the Northern Sui army severely damaged the Turkic army stationed in Qifubo, the Turkic army had retreated northward, and the Qifubo area was re-controlled by the Sui army.

Early in the morning of that day, a scout cavalry team composed of fifty people was running fast on the grassland north of Qifubo. The Northern Sui Dynasty deployed twenty scout cavalry in the Qifubo area, about 1,000 people. They were commanded by the scout Yingyanglang general Sun Ying, who was the nephew of Sun Xuanya. He was promoted step by step from the commander of the team, the commander of the brigade and the captain. Now he has been promoted to Yingyanglang general and is a very outstanding scout general in the Northern Sui Army.

This fifty-man scout team was led by Sun Ying. Their mission was to establish an outer patrol. Once the Turkic army was discovered, they immediately sent an alarm to the south. They complemented the beacon towers on Wuzhou Mountain and formed a very strict early warning system.

The reason why Sun Ying traveled north quickly was because yesterday they found several wolves injured with arrows. The wolves were flocking animals, usually in groups of hundreds, and rarely saw single wolves. Unless they were massacred by humans, most of the members of the wolves were killed and injured, and the remaining wolves would escape alone. Sun Ying immediately realized keenly that the wolves must have encountered the Turkic army patrol.

"General, look over there!" a soldier shouted at a grass hill several miles ahead.

Sun Ying also noticed an abnormality on the grass hill, as if a wolf was lying on his face. He immediately pulled out his battle knife and urged the horse to meet him. The other cavalry hurriedly followed.

Sure enough, a giant wolf with a strong body was lying in the grass, but it was already dead. It seemed that it had been dead for a while and was hit by eight or nine arrows.

Sun Ying pulled out one of the arrows and compared them with the several arrows collected yesterday. The arrows were exactly the same, but they were different from the arrows of the Sui army. The shaft was slightly shorter, the arrows were triangle-shaped, and they were well-made. They were arrows used by typical nomadic army, which showed that this was a standard arrow, made in batches, not earth arrows made by ordinary herdsmen.

Sun Ying could basically judge that a Turkic army appeared nearby. The wolf pack dared to attack them, which means that their number was not large, with a maximum of about 100 people. It should be a Turkic patrol patrol team.

"General, what should we do?" the soldier asked in a low voice.

Sun Ying stood up and said to everyone: "This wolf was hit by nine arrows, and at least five of them were shot deadly. This wolf could not run too far. If I was not mistaken, this Turkic sentry will be near us."

The soldiers suddenly became nervous. The view on the grassland was wide and the enemy could see it more than ten miles away. Could it be that the enemy had already discovered them?

Sun Ying turned over and rushed the horse and ran up the grass hill to look north. There was still a vast grassland in the north, but no trace of the army was seen. However, Sun Ying found a forest covering hundreds of acres in the northwest.

Sun Ying's eyes narrowed into a slit. He saw several eagles hovering above the woods, which meant that there were birds in the woods. Sun Ying turned around and ordered his opponent: "Relax the wolf smoke!"

The release of wolf smoke is the connection between the scouts of the Sui army. The smoke of wolf dung is not easy to float away. Even a thin smoke can be seen dozens of miles away. Soon, two soldiers lit the wolf dung, and a straight wolf smoke rushed straight into the sky. As long as the Northern Sui scouts who saw this wolf smoke within dozens of miles would come to support from all directions.

Sun Ying was not in a hurry to go to the woods. He wanted to delay time and wait for other scouts to arrive. Sun Ying also urgently needed to capture one or two enemy spies to find out the intelligence of the Turkic main army from the other side.

At this moment, a frightened bird flew up from the woods in the distance. A team of Turkic cavalry rushed out of the woods, with about a hundred people. They were divided into two groups, one left and one right, and surrounded the Sui army scouts. This Turkic patrol team also wanted to capture several Sui army scouts and explored the deployment of the Sui army from them. They were ambushed in the woods and attempted to ambush the Sui army scouts. However, Sun Ying was not deceived, but instead ignited the wolf smoke asking for help.

Sun Ying did not want to confront the Turkic army head-on, so he immediately ordered: "Retreat east!"

Fifty Sui army scouts quickly turned their horses and followed Sun Ying to the east. Hundreds of Turkic cavalry chased each other reluctantly. This was also the confidence of the Turkic cavalry. They rode horses and chased them on the grasslands. The Turkic cavalry did not take the Han people in the Central Plains seriously at all.

The two sides were hundreds of steps apart. Although the Turkic cavalry gradually caught up with the Sui cavalry, they never entered a distance of 300 steps. After half an hour, they had already run for more than 30 miles. At this time, Sun Ying shouted loudly, "Prepare to fight!"

The scouts of the Sui army tied down their horses, turned their heads, and raised their military crossbows together. Sun Ying shouted: "Shoot!"

The sound of crossbow machines was clattering, and fifty arrows rose into the air and shot towards the Turkic cavalry that was pursuing relentlessly. At this time, the Turkic cavalry were already raising arrows. Although their bow-making level benefited from the craftsmen of Hebei and Bingzhou who fled north, they made great progress, but due to the materials and bow-making techniques, the Turkic bows and arrows were still slightly inferior to the bow-making arrows of the Sui army.

The range of Turkic bows and arrows is 100 steps, and the effective killing distance is about 70 steps, while the range of Sui army bows and arrows is 150 steps, and the killing distance of crossbow arrows is even further, reaching 150 steps, which is twice that of Turkic bows and arrows.

So while the Turkic cavalry was raising their bows and arrows, they had already entered the range of killing of the Sui army's crossbow arrows. The centurion led by the leader suddenly realized something was wrong and shouted: "Get back immediately!"

The Turkic cavalry retreated one after another, but fifty crossbow arrows were already roaring. More than a dozen Turkic cavalry had no time to retreat and were all caught in the arrows. At this moment, three more Sui army scouts appeared from the south and north. The reason why Sun Ying stopped the army and retreated east was because the reinforcements he summoned had arrived.

The two scouts in the south immediately divided a team and ran towards the rear of the Turkic patrol soldiers. Seeing that the situation was not good, the Turkic centurion ordered: "Retreat to the northwest!"

The Turkic soldiers also found that they were trapped in the Sui army encirclement. They were shocked and shouted that the war horses were running northwest. This was the biggest gap at present. Whether they could break through the Sui army encirclement was here.

About 200 soldiers from the four Sui army scouts came toward the Turkic cavalry from four directions, and the encirclement was shrinking rapidly. At this moment, another Sui Dynasty scouts came to the west. This was the fifth Sui army scouts, and they just blocked the Turkic cavalry's way to break through.

The Turkic cavalry's eyes were red, and they roared, waving their swords and spears to kill the Sui cavalry.

This Turkic sentry team is also the elite of the Turkic army. They are wearing a full set of cowhide armor and a leather helmet, with wooden shields and Turkic bows and arrows, holding sharp spears and sharp swords in their hands. The strongest war horses are also covered with cowhide armor at the critical points, but compared with the Sui army scouts, their equipment is significantly lower.

The war horses of the scouts of the Sui army were also selected from the high-quality war horses imported from the grassland, and were by no means inferior to the war horses of the Turkic cavalry. They were wearing bright light armor, holding a short steel spear in their hands, a horizontal knife in their waist, and a round shield in their backs. They were equipped with horn bows and military crossbows. This was the embodiment of the national strength of the Northern Sui Dynasty. Their pig iron production far exceeded that of the Turks.

The advantage of the Turkic cavalry lies in their cavalry. They grew up on horseback and their ability to control war horses was much stronger than that of the Sui cavalry. They had not been able to catch up with the Sui cavalry before. The reason was not that the Sui cavalry was superb, but that the Turkic cavalry's war horses were also worn with leather armor, and the load-bearing weight of the war horses was much greater than that of the Sui cavalry.

This was a battle between two elite cavalry. More than fifty Sui scouts who came from the west blocked the retreat of the Turkic cavalry. The two armies fought fiercely. The cavalry's attack made the Turkic cavalry's hope of breaking through. In just a moment, the Sui cavalry scouts who came from all directions surrounded the Turkic patrol team of more than 100 people.

A quarter of an hour later, hundreds of Turkic cavalry were gradually killed and injured by the continuous strangulation of the Sui army scouts. The grassland was full of the bodies of Turkic cavalry, and the five Turkic people eventually became prisoners of the Sui army scouts.

Hundreds of Sui army scouts turned their horses and ran towards Qifubo in the south.

(To be continued.)

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Chapter completed!