Zhuo County, where Beixin City is located, borders Yanmen County to the west. The area between the two counties has been in turmoil due to years of war, so the governors of the two states have no time to take care of it.
Therefore, the narrow strip in the middle became the passage for the Huns from the north and south to plunder during the Nanxia Festival.
As long as the Northern Huns pass through Yanmen, they can pass through Changshan County and Shangdang County and directly enter Sili, threatening the Hongnong area in Hedong and Hanoi, and even approaching Luoyang, the former capital of the Han Dynasty.
As for the Southern Huns in Bingzhou, it was even more convenient. They could go to Luoyang to rob in any direction and bypass Hanoi.
Three years after the founding of the Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu established his capital in Luoyang and changed Luoyang to Luoyang. It has been nearly two hundred years since then.
Luoyang was once the capital of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Over the long years, it accumulated rich and splendid cultural customs. It was also the starting point of the Silk Road of the Han Dynasty. It was once a famous city famous all over the world.
However, in the first year of Chuping of the Han Dynasty (190), Dong Zhuo forced Emperor Xian of the Han Dynasty to move the capital to Chang'an and burned Luoyang palaces, temples and people's homes. The prosperous Luoyang city was completely destroyed and fell into chaos ever since.
After Dong Zhuo died, Li Jue and Guo Si occupied Chang'an and fought endlessly. The area around Chang'an also fell into chaos. Bingzhou was poor. Many foreign tribes from the north would invade south through Bingzhou and plunder relatively wealthy areas.
After that, they would escort the people and property all the way north, and among them, the Southern Xiongnu was the force closest to Shui Loutai.
In the past few years, the people of many states have been tortured, and preventing foreign tribes from causing chaos has become the ambition of those who care about the world.
The bet between Yuan Xi and Zhao Zilong was reached under this background.
Yuan Xi received information from Jizhou that a group of Southern Xiongnu bandits had plundered a lot of people and property near Chang'an in Luoyang, and were heading north along the passage between You and Bing, returning to Bingzhou via Beixin City.
At that time, various warlords were fighting endlessly, and they had no time to pay attention to this group of aliens. They watched them pass by Sili Jizhou and soon arrive at Youzhou Beixin City.
Therefore, Yuan Xi and Zhao Yun agreed to intercept the Southern Huns bandits and decide the outcome based on their heads.
Yuan Xi is more than 70% sure that Zhao Yun will agree to this bet.
Not only that if he loses this bet, he will hand over Beixin City. For Zhao Yun, being able to capture the city without fighting or harming civilians is naturally a very tempting condition.
Another important reason is that Yuan Xi knew from history books that Zhao Yun admired Huo Qubing the most, so he felt pity for the Huns who brought trouble to the children of the Han family. Now that he heard that the Huns could intercept, kill, and plunder the Huns, he was naturally happy to go there. .
Moreover, the Xiongnu traveled south through Youxi and poisoned the people along the way. On their route, there was Zhao Yun's hometown Changshan County. For the sake of his hometown elders, Zhao Yun would also be biased when making decisions.
So in the end, as expected, Zhao Yun accepted the bet.
Then comes the most critical and difficult step.
How to beat Zhao Yun.
Yuan Xi felt a dull pain in his head when he saw that Qu Yi was eager to try and challenge Zhao Yun.
Dong Zhao was good at planning, and Qu Yi still had power, but neither of them knew enough about Zhao Yun.
Zhao Yun is definitely not that easy to deal with!
It was getting late, and in the valley dozens of miles south of Beixin City, a leading team of Southern Xiongnu bandits appeared.
There were about a dozen of them, all with their hair disheveled and their left shoulders exposed. Their tops were straight-breasted shorts, their bottoms were crotch-fitting trousers, and they wore leather boots. Each of them held a long bow in his hand. , with two pots of arrows on his back, his eyes alert.
This is obviously a group of Hun forward scouts, all of whom are good horse-mounted archers.
They looked at the mountains and forests on both sides, alert, and couldn't help but look left and right. Although the Xiongnu tribe they belonged to was known as rogue bandits, they were actually the elite of the southern Xiongnu, with hundreds of young men.
They took advantage of Li Jue and Guo Si's internal fighting in Chang'an and robbed hundreds of women and a large amount of property, preparing to take them to the Xiongnu Chanyu.
For various reasons, they did not return to Bingzhou from Zuofengyi (Pingyi), but took the road between Youbin and made a big circle.
Naturally, they abducted women in order to have offspring. As for the men of the Han family, the Huns had never left them alive.
The customs of the Han Xiongnu are different. Women are too weak to resist, but men have many variables.
Moreover, since the founding of the Western Han Dynasty, the Han Dynasty and the Xiongnu have been on conquest for hundreds of years. The Huns have become accustomed to the sharp swords and arrows of Han men. Now that the offensive and defensive trends are reversed, they will naturally not leave any Han men alive.
The first few people looked up at the hillside in the distance. There were several men wearing Orion clothes and Han buns, squatting on the ground with their backs to them, as if they were paying tribute.
There was a Hun scout with a ferocious look on his face. He rode forward, drew his bow and arrows, and shot at the hunters.
Several hunters heard the sound of bows and arrows and hurriedly found big trees to hide, causing the Hun scouts below to laugh and shout: "Han dogs! So cowardly!"
Normally, when they encounter such civilians, they will have to flee in a hurry after shooting a few arrows.
However, what they didn't expect was that the hunters hid behind the trees, picked up the wooden bows in their hands, and shot wooden arrows one after another!
Some Huns scouts saw that the wooden arrows shot were quite crude, and turned their heads to avoid them unconcernedly. As a result, the arrows flew past, but they smelled a foul smell.
He suddenly woke up and yelled: "The Han dog is cunning and smeared gold juice (dung water) on it!"
However, at the next moment, there was a loud sound, and the horse under his crotch was hit by a wooden arrow. It stood upright and almost knocked him off.
The Huns scout desperately pulled on the reins, heartbroken. This war horse was extremely rare for their tribe. Now that it was shot by an arrow coated with gold juice, he was afraid that he would get sick when he returned and would be unable to go into battle.
He was so angry that he called on everyone to draw their bows and fight back. As a result, the hunters shot surprisingly accurately. The two sides fired at each other, and several horses on the Xiongnu side were injured by arrows coated with gold juice.
But those hunters escaped unscathed through the cover of trees.
Looking at a companion who was extremely unlucky to have a wooden arrow pierce the eye and died on the spot, the remaining Huns scouts looked extremely ugly.
They discussed for a while and then divided into two teams. One team continued to move forward to explore the road, while the other team went back to report the news.
High in the mountains and forests, Yuan Xi did not go far. He took a group of men dressed as hunters to peek from a distance.
The hunters who fought back just now were disguised as his scouts who were personally trained by Qu Yi and were good at killing horse thieves.
Sun Li, who was behind him, muttered: "Brother, those bastards still dare to look at us, why don't you chase them and kill them all?"
A veteran heard this and exclaimed, "Boy Sun Li, how can you talk like this? How many times have you said that you want to be called Young Master!"
"Young Master is the second son of Mr. Yuan. He has a distinguished status. It is not appropriate for you to call him brother, let alone such an inexplicable big brother!"
After hearing this, Sun Li muttered: "Brother doesn't even care..."
Yuan Xi touched his nose and said with a smile: "It doesn't matter, these Huns will want them to look good sooner or later, but a good man doesn't suffer the loss of the moment. There are many people behind them, and we will be in trouble if we are intercepted."
"Stay away and check the situation first."
This scout team only has seven or eight people. It can deal with a few horse thieves and bandits, but it can't do anything against hundreds of people.
Yuan Xi led everyone to climb up the mountain. After the last few Xiongnu scouts left in anger, he climbed up a big tree and took out a cylinder from his arms.
He put the cylinder in front of his eyes, and the scene under the mountain was immediately magnified several times, making it much clearer.
This is after he traveled through time, he searched for telescopes polished by craftsmen out of crystal. It was quite time-consuming and laborious, and only two pairs have been made. Although they can only magnify several times and are a bit blurry, they can see much farther than the naked eye.
In the mountain road more than ten miles away, smoke and dust were rising in the sky, and the Huns' army was coming.
Yuan Xi heard that this Huns bandit had a large number of people, and he didn't know whether it was due to good luck or some connections. He went north from Sili, crossed Hanoi and Jizhou, and traveled hundreds of miles, but the journey was smooth.
As long as they walked to Beixin City, they could bypass the territory of the Black Mountain Bandits to the west, then go northwest into Bingzhou and return to the Southern Huns Palace.
But no matter which force the Xiongnu bandits got the acquiescence of, even if Yuan Shao himself agreed, Yuan Xi was not going to let them go.
Even if there are only a few hundred soldiers available in the city, even if Gongsun Zan's army is looking at him outside Beixin City, and even if he is punished by the Yuan family afterwards, he will still kill these scourges who are poisoning the people.
Anyone who offends a strong man will be punished no matter how far away he is.
Those who offend the children of the Han family are so close in front of us, how can we not punish them?
