Kunbuha led the tenth captain Abul, crossed Galibo, and tracked northward.
They first discovered large hoof prints. Many of them had no traces of hoofs, and were obviously the group of Tatar trackers that Kunbuha had seen before.
The hoof prints are clearly visible on the surface of the salt-alkali wasteland. If not covered by the yellow sand in autumn, these marks will remain until the beginning of the next spring, when the water in several lakes rises.
Riding sideways along the hoof prints is much more convenient than the previous large-scale search. Abel was worried that the Tatars were fierce and unruly, so he sent two people back, urged his centurion to send reinforcements, and then continued the pursuit with Kunbuha and others.
Two or three days later, the hoofprints suddenly became chaotic, and there were many traces of arrows. Judging from the appearance, a cavalry team suddenly came out from a side road to cross them, and the people who came after them launched an attack without hesitation, shooting and hacking the Tatar people indiscriminately.
"There are corpses, at least twenty...and there are more behind them!" Kunbuha shouted loudly and ran behind a thorn.
Abel followed a few steps closer, crossed the thorns, and saw the site of the fierce battle a few days ago. In the semi-dried salt brine, dense hoof prints were everywhere, brown blood clots condensed in large pools, and many corpses were scattered on the salt brine.
In late autumn, the weather begins to cool down. Although the sun is still strong during the day, the salt brine everywhere offsets the rotting effect of the sun. Therefore, except for a thin layer of ash, there is no change on the corpse, and even the wounds can be clearly distinguished.
Some were shot by bows and arrows, some had their heads cut off with sharp blades, some were trampled to death by war horses, and some were injured and fell to the ground and had their heads and necks cut off with a last-ditch knife.
"All those who died were Tatars. They had no armor or decent weapons. They were like rabbits killed by wolves. They were no match for those who came after them."
Kunbuha rummaged around for a while and pulled out a deeply embedded arrow from the wound of a dead man: "The people who came later were well-equipped and used fine iron arrows. After the war, they were too lazy to take back the arrow clusters! who are they?"
Maybe it's a subordinate of the Golden Family, or maybe it's a Jingqi secretly raised by a thousand households deep in the grassland?
Thinking of this, Abel suddenly felt chilly and couldn't help but shudder: "Damn it, what kind of noble role is this man? Why did the people who came to find them come so quickly and attack so harshly?"
He raised his eyes and looked into the distance carefully, but unfortunately wherever he looked, there were either vast white rocky beaches or undulating barren mountains and steep cliffs.
"Fifty horses, a thousand sheep...is it worth it?" he murmured.
"Captain Ten, these people are one day ahead of us, are you still chasing them?" Kunbuha walked back from the front and asked with some horror.
After all, none of them are the kind of Mongolian warriors who kill people like crazy.
Abel used to be, but after breaking an arm, he was despised as a useless person for several years, which sapped his spirit. A search that only required a little hard work turned into a fight, which made him subconsciously want to avoid it.
But……
Abel couldn't help but cursed again: "Damn it, we are too poor..."
Since Genghis Khan's Western Expeditions, a large number of the best members of this thousand households have been mobilized, and those who remain are old and weak who are looked down upon by outsiders. In previous years, all the supplies they had gained from plundering with the Great Khan had long been exhausted. They could no longer even maintain their own pastures, and they would be robbed secretly and openly every now and then. Since this year, a few children in Qianhuan have wanted to drink fresh goat's milk, but none of the goats have enough.
If this continues, in a year or two at most, the entire Thousand Households will be gone! Everyone has to be slaves for other nobles from thousands of households!
Finding the missing Haner nobleman and dedicating him to a powerful Qianhu Nayan like Belgutai or Yeligasi was almost the only way Abel could think of to save his tribe.
Abel took out the leather bag from his waist, raised his neck and drank the last bit of bad wine: "Catch up and have a look. Didn't you say those two guys are going to Usha Castle? Let's go to Usha Castle!" Maybe you can gain something!"
"But……"
"Be careful on the road, and use the same spirit as when hunting... There is a lot of chaos on the grassland at the moment. We only need to follow from a distance. If we can seize some clues and hand them over to Qianhu Nayan in the future, we will be credited! "
Everyone around him heard that he could follow from a distance, so they all relaxed a little and said, "We listen to the commander of ten."
Now the group of people continued to go north.
In order to avoid colliding with the fierce cavalry team later, they did not dare to gallop along the way. Most of the time, they led the horses and walked on the salt flats. They only made sure that the hoof prints left in front were completely dry and the distance between the two sides was widened. In this case, he rode his horse to catch up.
Two days later, they crossed the deserted beach, crossed the rolling hills, crossed the scattered meadows, and gradually entered the grassland. They approached Usha Castle, the northernmost point controlled on the grassland when Dajin was at its peak.
The salt pond has long been left behind, the water vapor in Galibo cannot be felt, and a rough smell begins to appear in the air. This is a vast grassland with no roads, no houses, and no traces of human transformation of nature.
This was the truly active environment when the Mongols had not yet risen. Further north, there are terrible deserts and wastelands. Even the Mongols usually do not regard the Mobei tribes living there as kin.
The relationship between the grassland peoples and the grassland is like that of wolves or sheep on the grassland. They are part of the grassland and never want to transform the grassland. Therefore, after many Mongolian nayans arrived in the Central Plains, they proposed to destroy all the cities in the Central Plains, kill all the Han people, and turn the fields into deserts for grazing cattle and sheep.
But when Abul and Kunbuha came here, they didn't feel any comfortable.
Perhaps it is because they once went south to the Central Plains and experienced the prosperity and splendor of the Central Plains, and then returned to the grasslands and felt what life was like far away from the output of the Central Plains.
Abel was distracted while driving his horse.
When he was young, he was a fierce man who relied on his own strength. He always felt that his centurion Naminfu thought too much and was not like a decisive Mongolian hero. But then he broke his arm and could no longer carry a knife to fight, so he was abandoned by everyone. The drastic change in the environment made him an alcoholic and made him think about many things that he had never thought about before.
At this moment, he suddenly discovered that compared to the familiar grasslands, places with official roads, villages, canals, restaurants and teahouses, and a constant flow of farmers would make people happier and live a better life. Better.
In fact, most people on the grasslands will come to this result if they think about it seriously.
If you have to find some advantages, in Abel's eyes, the scenery on the grassland is pretty good. However, people have to live and stay alive. No matter how beautiful the scenery is, how hard it is to herd cattle for many years, and how terrible are the black and white disasters that occur every now and then?
If the Mongolians all think that the grassland is the most beautiful home, then they should be content with living in the grassland for generations, so why go around killing and plundering? While wanting to enjoy the output of the civilized world, at the same time despising civilization and trying to destroy it and replace it with barbarism, that is a completely twisted mentality.
In this case, what are all the people doing by persisting on the grassland and living increasingly poorer lives?
Or maybe a man as talented as Genghis Khan understood all this, but tried his best to promote the nobility of the grassland people, in fact, in order to keep everyone barbaric, so that everyone will always be a beast driven by the Golden Family?
Abul was thinking about it when he suddenly heard Kunbuha shouting from the side: "Captain Ten, hide quickly!"
"What?"
Abel was stunned. At the same time, he heard the sound of many people running in large strides on the other side of the rolling hills and depressions.
How could people suddenly appear in such a desolate place? The murderous pursuit cavalry is still ahead, and the two Han nobles who are being pursued should have arrived at Usha Castle... We are obviously very careful!
Abel didn't have time to move his horse to hide, so he simply turned his hand and pressed the handle of the knife at his waist, looking towards the direction of the footsteps with a grin.
The next moment, what appeared in front of him was a group of beggar-like people. Everyone was in ragged clothes and looked haggard. They were all thin and staggering, as if a strong wind could blow them down. But each of them was running as hard as they could. Some had bloody feet, but they were still running. Some fell to the ground while running, and then got up using their hands and feet and continued to move forward.
"Who are these people?"
Abel asked subconsciously, and then reacted: "These are Han'er slaves deep in the grassland!"
(End of chapter)
