mesbooks Chapter 132 Are They Really Turks?
Chapter 132 Are They Really Turks?
In fact, there were often Turkic attacks around Mangcheng. Were these troops who came to raid small villages and towns really Turkic?
There are two roads from the Turkic city to the nearest fortress on the border, but no matter which road you choose, you still need to ride for two days and one night. In the middle road, there is a wasteland and a large saline-alkali land. The wasteland and the saline-alkali land will become like the Gobi Desert in winter, and in the summer, there will be flood season, and the wasteland will become a muddy swamp. If you are not careful, you will fall into the swamp with your horse.
The Tie Road has to pass through two mountain passes. There are strong winds all year round and it is bitterly cold in winter. The thickness of the snow in winter is generally half a person's height. The speed of the horse will be very slow. Except for summer, the other three seasons are covered with snow. If you are not very clear about the road, it is easy to lose your footing and fall into the valley.
These two roads are very difficult to travel in winter. If the Turks really wanted to come to Mangcheng to rob through these two roads, it is impossible for them to just rob one or two villages and go back.
Previously, Wei Ling led the Black Tiger Army to fight outside and never came back. He only saw the battle reports from Mangcheng. At that time, he was obsessed with revenge and did not study the battle reports from Mangcheng. He only saw how many times the Black Tiger Army stayed in Mangcheng and repelled the Turkic harassment, and how many times the Turkic raids were beyond the coverage of the Black Tiger Army. Because of the lack of manpower, they were unable to rush to help in time, so they were robbed by the Turkic people, and so on.
So no matter who has the impression, the land outside Mangcheng is constantly harassed by the Turks, who harass the border residents from time to time.
It was because of such battle reports that Emperor Longchang asked him to return to Mangcheng to garrison and prevent a large-scale attack by the Turks.
After all, when Wei Ling was fighting outside, those who stayed behind in Mangcheng were also part of the Black Tiger Army.
After Wei Ling returns to Mangcheng, he will be able to better redistribute troops to resist the attacks of the Turks and protect the safety of the border city.
Wei Ling also thought so before returning to Mangcheng. That year, he led his men out of the mine and formed another team in order to avenge his family. Of course, as the team grew stronger, he actually fought with a small group of Turkic invaders once, but that was only one chance for him to really engage in close combat with the Turks.
Afterwards, he left Mangcheng with half of the Black Tiger Army. At that time, he had only 20,000 troops, and there were 10,000 left in Mangcheng.
However, not long after returning this time, he was attacked by the Turks, who seemed to be trying to give him a warning. That was the time when they set fire to the granary while Su Jixiang's maids were asleep. As a result, Xie Yingfeng temporarily placed the maids in the granary and moved away the real military rations, so the fire did not burn the military rations but the maids who came to get married.
Although Nangong Rui caught up with the Turks later, Wei Ling noticed some clues when he carefully examined the bodies of the Turks.
Although those people had calluses on their palms, which seemed to be caused by years of riding horses and handling weapons, the location of the calluses seemed to be different from those caused by real soldiers.
Most people have almost no calluses on the base of their right hands, but the calluses on their left hands are heavier.
Wei Ling observed for a long time and found that most soldiers had more calluses on their right hands because they held weapons with their right hands. However, the calluses on their left hands were much thinner. Even if some left-handed people were the opposite, it was impossible that all the Turks who came to attack were left-handed.
Moreover, Wei Ling also secretly found Zhou Ziqi. These Turks were all poisoned, a chronic poison.
That is to say, even if they are not killed in the pursuit, they will die on the way back.
Does this really make any practical sense?
Unless someone wants to kill and silence someone.
There were only a few thousand Turks who came to harass them. Qian Feng led his men to chase after only a few hundred of them. Qian Feng killed them and brought back their bodies. The rest fled.
So at that time Wei Ling was wondering whether the people killed by Qian Feng might be the so-called scapegoats.
It's just that Wei Ling had just returned to Mangcheng at that time and was not particularly familiar with the affairs of Mangcheng, so he didn't think much about it afterwards, but just paid more attention.
He later changed the defenses around Mangcheng. Strangely, there has been no incident of harassment from the Turks since he changed the defense map.
Moreover, Wei Ling had studied the map carefully. It would take the Turks two days and one night to reach the nearest village. If the Turks came to plunder, wouldn't it be a bit uneconomical for them to only rob one village?
Wei Ling also carefully read the previous battle reports. In most cases, only one or two villages would be attacked at the same time.
So this made Wei Ling feel that something was wrong.
He checked the harassment he had experienced when he first arrived in Mangcheng. There were five relatively large rice shops in the capital.
The Turks burned down four rice shops in Mangcheng very accurately, but did not do anything to the other one. He thought it might be because he did not have enough time.
But then I thought something was wrong.
The barn and the burned rice store caught fire at almost the same time, so they didn't have time to burn the fifth rice store? They had clearly sent spies to investigate in advance. Their purpose was to leave the people of Mangcheng and the garrison without food and cause chaos.
If the military camp's food and the other two or four large grain stores in Mangcheng were all burned down, then everyone would have to go to the fifth store that survived to buy rice.
So Wei Ling went to secretly investigate the warehouse of the fifth shop.
They had already stockpiled a large amount of food before the army returned to Mangcheng.
If they hadn't foreseen the future, they wouldn't have had the confidence to stockpile several times more food than usual.
Although the army's granary was saved, the other four rice shops suffered heavy losses, so the surviving shop still made a fortune by selling rice.
But what if even the army's food and fodder were burned...
So at that time Wei Ling felt as if he had entered a big net that had been woven by others.
It was not until this time when Ye Shizhi assassinated him and tested him that he could completely conclude that he had really fallen into someone else's trap.
The poison that the shopkeeper's wife and children were poisoned with was the same poison that infected the dead Turks.
There are no such coincidences in the world. Everything is related to each other.
Since someone had made such careful arrangements, Wei Ling felt that he should not let those people down.