These soldiers who suddenly appeared in front of Shen Lie were Li Jiangyao and others who were out to survey the terrain.
The scout who was standing guard on the hill just now noticed from a distance that Shen Lao and Shen Lao were chasing each other and approaching them rapidly, so he immediately issued a warning to the captain.
Li Jiangyao became curious, so he led Du Jian and the others quietly to the nearby area and surrounded Shen Lie and Lao Jianhua, who were both dressed in Shengtang costumes.
At this moment, facing Shen Lie's inquiry, Li Jiangyao did not answer and asked: "Who are you two? Why are you fighting here?"
Shen Lie had already guessed that the other party would ask this question, and took out the token from his waist: "I am Shen Lie, the young minister of Dali Temple. I have been ordered to arrest the imperial criminals. I hope that you will assist me." After saying that, he put the token in his hand. The token was thrown to Li Jiangyao.
Li Jiangyao raised his hand to catch the token, but before he could take a closer look, he heard Lao Jianhua, who was on the other side, laughing loudly: "You hateful traitor, how dare you dare to complain first? Sir, I am the special envoy of the Nilin Division of the Imperial Capital. Lao Jianhua, according to your Majesty's order, we are going to capture this traitor who defected to the Turks. Please be aware of it." As he said that, he also took out a token from his arms and threw it to Li Jiangyao.
Shen Lie almost burst out of his lungs when he saw this. According to the rules, he could not reveal his true identity easily, so he only told the outside world that he was from Dali Temple. Unexpectedly, this move was taken advantage of by Lao Jianhua.
However, reason told him that it was not appropriate to rush to defend at this time, otherwise it would easily cause misunderstandings among the Zhenjiang Army. Anyway, what is true cannot be false, and what is false cannot be true. All problems are left to the young officer of the Zhenjiang Protectorate to handle.
Li Jiangyao weighed the two tokens in his hand and looked at them respectively. He couldn't help but shake his head and said with a smile: "This is a bit interesting. Both of them said that they were court officials and the other was a fugitive criminal, but I couldn't tell the difference. True or false. How about this, you come back to Metasequoia City with me first, and then slowly investigate."
This was the answer Shen Lie wanted to hear the most, and he quickly agreed. Unexpectedly, Lao Jianhua also had the same reaction, and he happily accepted it.
Li Jiangyao waved his hand, and all the soldiers immediately swarmed forward. Without waiting for anything else, Shen Lie and Lao Jianhua tied their hands in a few strokes.
Encountering such strange things as real and fake officials, Li Jiangyao immediately decided to temporarily end the task of surveying the terrain, and the whole team immediately returned to Metasequoia City.
First, these two people may be involved in important court cases. Only when they return to the city can they verify their identities through official letters from the government to avoid delaying important events.
Secondly, it was not long before Li Jiangyao and the others left Metasequoia. It had been cold and unbearable for the past two days, and with the New Year approaching, the physical fitness and morale of the brothers were far worse than when they first came out. It was better to withdraw the team and let everyone go back. Let’s talk about it after another festival.
When the order was passed, the entire scout team immediately cheered, and everyone got on their horses and embarked on the return journey.
Shen Lie's hands were tied behind his back, and he relied on his legs to clamp the horse's belly. The bumps on the road were unavoidable and extremely hard.
However, at the moment, he couldn't care about this. He just kept thinking about a question in his mind: Logically speaking, if they return to Metasequoia City with the Zhenjiang Army, they only need to release a messenger crow and fly to Parthia or Zijin Pass. In the future, the identity of him and Lao Jianhua will be revealed.
When that time comes, even if Lao Jianhua has wings, he may not be able to escape and ascend to heaven.
However, what is strange is that this old thief always looks calm and composed, as if he is not nervous about it.
Why is this?
Based on Shen Lie's understanding of Lao Jianhua, he was a man of deep scheming and cunning, and would never have no countermeasures in the face of a crisis.
Now that he is so calm and relaxed, he must have already thought of some conspiracy.
This judgment made Shen Lie feel very uneasy. He thought hard, but he couldn't figure out Lao Jianhua's trump card at all, and he still had no clue.
It wasn't until the team arrived outside Metasequoia City that Shen Lie, who had been confused, suddenly realized.
-
After traveling for two days and one night, they were about to arrive at Metasequoia. The soldiers who were originally in high spirits were stunned by the sight before them.
Looking in the direction of the city from a distance, several huge black smoke pillars were rising from the top of the city, and the surrounding metasequoias were filled with flames.
An army of tens of thousands is surrounding the Metasequoia trees and launching a fierce attack. The soldiers attacking the city were like ants, following the simple ladders and clinging to the city wall, constantly swarming up.
The deafening shouts of killing resounded in the open wilderness, and even spread for several miles, directly reaching the ears of Li Jiangyao and others.
"Boss! What the hell is going on!" Du Jian's face turned pale and he felt at a loss for a moment.
Li Jiangyao took a deep breath and said calmly: "Don't panic! Metasequoia City has not been breached yet."
After that, he urged his horse to rush up a small slope, looking far into the distance and carefully observing the battle situation on the other side of the city.
After a while, Li Jiangyao turned around and smiled at his stunned subordinates: "Fortunately, I know things well and have made preparations for today."
Everyone couldn't help but be confused when they heard what he said. However, Li Jiangyao's relaxed and confident reaction calmed everyone's hearts to a great extent. The soldiers knew very well that Lieutenant Li had indeed made a lot of preparations for the defense of Metasequoia City, so he seemed extremely confident and was probably not bluffing.
This is often the case in battles. What worries soldiers is often not how powerful the enemy is, but whether their general is sure of winning.
If the general panics when something happens, and loses his position and has no idea before he fights the enemy, then most of the people below him will be at a loss and have no intention of resisting the enemy, and it will be difficult to boost their fighting spirit and morale.
On the contrary, if the leader behaves confidently, then the next question will be very simple. For soldiers, there is only one thing that needs to be considered: executing orders.
Even if this so-called "confidence" is pretended by the general, it doesn't matter, because most people are more willing to believe in things that are beneficial to them when they are in a tense situation.
And Li Jiangyao's confidence at this moment was really fake.
Although he had anticipated various possibilities in advance, including the possibility that Metasequoia City would face another attack by the army, these expectations were only for the Ghost Alliance horse bandits. It was against the sky, that is, there might be Turks behind them. Certain assistance.
However, the exaggerated scene in front of him was completely beyond his expectation and far exceeded the response strategy he had prepared.
My God, the enemies attacking Metasequoia were not several thousand, nor ten thousand, but thirty or forty thousand!
Li Jiangyao secretly sighed at his bad luck, pointed to the distance and asked: "Except for the horse bandits in Geerhan, some of the flags should be those of the Turks, right? Who can identify which army they are?"
Du Jian put his hands on his eyes and looked around for a while, then replied in a deep voice: "The blue flag has fire below and flying pigeons above. This should be the Turkic Iron Pigeon Army. I heard that within the Golden Clan, they have always been responsible for reconnaissance. , the light cavalry regiment that was attacking and intruding, I didn’t expect that so many people would be mobilized to attack the city, but our border patrol failed to detect them in advance and give a warning!”
Li Jiangyao sneered: "After the Battle of Western Xinjiang, the Xinjiang Army was depleted of troops. Most of the border patrol teams were deployed to various places for garrison, including our Pegasus scouts. How could anyone be able to warn in time. Moreover, in the past few months, The horse bandits were harassing us everywhere, which made everyone exhausted, so naturally they didn't care about the masters of running like the Iron Pigeon Army, and they eventually took advantage of the loophole."
He thought for a moment and then ordered: "Old Du, leave four brothers behind, keep an eye on those two people, and the rest follow me!"
-
In the evening, the cold wind suddenly picked up, and heavy snow began to fall in the sky. The coalition forces of Turks and horse bandits temporarily stopped their offensive and returned to the rear camps to rest and recuperate.
The tenacious resistance of the Metasequoia City defenders greatly exceeded the expectations of the attacking party. After a whole day of siege fighting, the Turks invested tens of thousands of troops and horses on the front line, but they failed to capture the head of Metasequoia City.
Now God is adding to the chaos, with the heavy snow and wind seriously interfering with the rhythm of the attack.
In view of this, the coalition headquarters made a decision to abandon the plan of "sudden attack and capture the city in one fell swoop" and instead besieged the city and waited for an opportunity to fight again.
Looking at the enemy troops retreating like a tide, Lin Feng finally breathed a sigh of relief.
The captain is not in the city, so all the burdens naturally fall on his shoulders alone.
In the early morning, as soon as the enemy troops appeared, the vigilant sentries immediately sent out a signal. Lin Feng immediately implemented comprehensive martial law on the metasequoia according to Li Jiangyao's pre-planned defense strategy.
Immediately afterwards, five hundred Pegasus scouts and more than a thousand garrison troops boarded the city, using the well-prepared defense system to give the aggressive siege troops a head-on blow.
The enemy was obviously well prepared. Seeing that the defenders were well prepared, they repelled the vanguard's surprise attack as soon as they came up. They immediately set up their formation and launched an all-out attack on Metasequoia City from all directions at the same time.
With two thousand troops facing nearly ten thousand enemy troops, one can imagine the pressure on Lin Feng. Fortunately, Li Jiangyao had never relaxed his defense preparations since he entered Metasequoia City. At this time, they were waiting for work. They had no shortage of bows, arrows, petroleum, stone, and wood. Coupled with the heroic and capable Pegasus scouts, they were actually safe. After guarding for a whole day, the Turks and horse bandits were not allowed to board the city.
At this moment, Lin Feng felt extremely conflicted as he looked at the hundreds of injured people sitting and lying nearby, as well as the consumption of nearly half of all kinds of supplies.
On the one hand, he hopes that Li Jiangyao can come back as soon as possible to take charge of the overall situation of Metasequoia, but on the other hand, he does not want the adults and brothers such as Du Jian to appear here.
Being surrounded by tens of thousands of enemies, Metasequoia may not survive tomorrow night before it falls. Coming back at this time is no different than seeking death.
At this time, the city guard Ma Mu came to Lin Feng: "Brother, a new batch of supplies has been shipped. Do you want to take advantage of this moment to go down and have a rest?"
Lin Feng shook his head, looked at the busy crowd nearby, and couldn't help but sigh: "Master Mamu, don't be in a hurry now, maybe you can rest forever..."
Ma Mu quickly covered Lin Feng's mouth with his dirty hands: "Bah, bah, bah, that's unlucky. Colonel Lin, you are our Metasequoia commander now, don't say such depressing words!"
Lin Feng shook his head vigorously and avoided Ma Mu: "I know, I know, please take your hands away first."
Ma Mu let go of Lin Feng and turned to look at the continuous tents outside the city: "To be honest, so many enemy troops suddenly came, and I felt a little unsure. It would be great if Master Li was here!"
Lin Feng nodded slightly and thought to himself: Li Jiangyao is such a person.
He always looks like he doesn't care about anything. Not only does he not have the airs of a captain, but he doesn't even look like an officer. Whether they are his deputies or ordinary soldiers and civilians, they can all joke with him and laugh and mingle with him.
However, everyone also has the same feeling - as long as he is around, people feel particularly at ease. No matter how bad the situation is, Li Jiangyao seems to be able to find a way to solve it.
Ma Mu thought so, and Lin Feng certainly thought the same.
At this moment, Lieutenant Li, who was blindly worshiped by Lin Feng and Ma Mu, was squatting and busy not far to the north of Metasequoia City.
The team surveying the terrain originally came from the east, but Li Jiangyao took everyone in a big circle, surrounding the enemy camp to the north of Metasequoia City.
In this place, there is a hidden rocky hill, a thousand paces in radius, with jagged rocks everywhere and no grass growing on it.
Located in the center of this rocky hill, a half-sunk cave entrance is hidden among the boulders. It is difficult for people who are not familiar with this place to know.
More than a month ago, Li Jiangyao accidentally discovered this natural cave while patrolling around the metasequoia. He immediately ordered Ma Mu to secretly arrange manpower and spent several nights to transfer a large amount of materials here.
Du Jian was not surprised because he knew about it beforehand. But the other soldiers were so surprised by what they saw in front of them that they opened their mouths from ear to ear.
In this cave, not only are large quantities of grains, miscellaneous beans, and dried beef and rabbit meat stored, but there are also armors and weapons newly made by the weapons dealer in Metasequoia City, especially strong bows, crossbows, and bundles of arrows. Arm a brigade of a hundred men.
The most unexpected thing is that there are actually more than a dozen boxes of firearms from Jiangnan in Middle-earth hidden here.
Li Jiangyao raised his hand and patted a stunned soldier beside him: "Have you ever heard of the term Cunning Rabbit Three Caves?"
