The First Family of the Red Mansion

Chapter 15 Deceiving the Heavens

"Phew, I finally made it out alive."

Upon receiving a report from the scouts that the Durbet tribe's herding community had been discovered ahead, Liu Hu finally breathed a sigh of relief.

Since being ordered to lead three thousand elite cavalry to raid the rear of the Oirat people, Liu Hu and his men first crossed Longshou Mountain. Although the mountain road was difficult, it was close to the rear, and at least water and supplies were not lacking. Except for a dozen people who accidentally died in the valley, everyone else safely walked out of the mountains.

However, the vast desert ahead proved to be a grueling experience for Liu Hu's army.

After entering the desert, Liu Hu and his men lost contact with their rear. Although this detachment consisted of light cavalry with one man and three horses, they couldn't carry much supplies.

If Liu Hu hadn't secretly helped them using his special abilities, this detached army might have been completely wiped out in the desert.

Even so, they still encountered quicksand and storms, and more than 500 people were forever buried in this desert.

At this moment, this detachment, including Liu Hu, was covered in dust and dirt, and even their leather armor was tattered, making them look like a defeated army.

Looking at his demoralized subordinates, Liu Hu slowly stood up, took a deep breath, and then excitedly shouted, "I have good news for everyone! Scouts report that we have encountered a tribe of Oirats about thirty miles ahead!"

"Brothers, we've made it out of the desert..."

"oh……"

As soon as Liu Hu finished speaking, the more than two thousand people around him shook off their dejection and shouted excitedly.

"It was so tough. For more than a month, there was quicksand and strong winds, and we had to endure hunger. If we hadn't made it out of the desert, I doubted I would have died here."

"Doggy, did you hear that? We've made it out."

"..."

When they set out, there were three thousand men and nearly ten thousand horses. By this time, only two thousand men and less than five thousand warhorses remained.

The other horses either perished in the desert or ended up in the stomachs of the soldiers.

Even though Liu Hu had a cheat code, he didn't dare to use it openly. He could only secretly add more water to places with water sources.

At other times, when there was no water or food, people would kill horses, drink their blood, and eat their meat.

"We've finally made it out!" Liu Hu said, still looking shaken.

Then his eyes flashed coldly, and he shouted loudly, "You've all been following me, enduring wind and rain for over a month. Now, I'll treat you to a good meal."

"Oh...~"

Judging from their shouts, no one would believe they were from the Great Zhou army.

More than a month of life-or-death marches had almost eroded the last bit of morality in the soldiers' hearts.

All they want to do now is have a good meal and then get a good night's sleep.

The Oirat tribe ahead was the one that supplied them with provisions.

After a short rest, the soldiers mounted their horses, their eyes gleaming, and waited quietly for Liu Hu's orders.

"Let's go!" Liu Hu waved his hand and rode his warhorse forward.

"General, the tribe ahead has about a thousand people. Apart from nearly three hundred Han Chinese herdsmen, the rest are all Oirat people."

"However, the vast majority of them are the elderly, children, women, and the weak; there are fewer than a hundred who are capable of fighting."

After meeting up with the scouts, Liu Hu understood the basic situation of this Oirat tribe.

"You'll know what to do later, right?"

Liu Hu summoned all the officers of the rank of centurion and above and asked them questions.

"Know!"

Everyone grinned, revealing cruel smiles.

"Good to know. We are now deep in enemy territory, and the slightest mistake could lead to annihilation. Now is absolutely not the time for mercy. Anyone who is unwilling to come with us will be eliminated!"

After this period of fighting, Liu Hu has become a qualified general, and his moral values ​​from his previous life are gradually being rebuilt through his experiences.

"Alright, we'll go replenish our supplies and manpower at midnight tonight."

"yes!"

In a mountain hollow ten miles away from the Oirat tribe, after the soldiers finished eating all the dry rations they had brought with them, they all quietly wiped their weapons, waiting for midnight to arrive.

"Set off!"

As midnight approached, Liu Hu gave the order and led the charge towards the Oirat tribe...

"Are you Han Chinese?"

Liu Hu, mounted on his horse, looked down at the man in front of him, who appeared to be around thirty years old.

Although he was also dressed in Oirat attire, his skin was noticeably smoother than that of the Oirat people.

However, the strong smell of mutton mixed with other odors emanating from him clearly indicated that he was a shepherd.

Two thousand elite cavalrymen of the Great Zhou, their eyes bloodshot with rage, launched a surprise attack on a small Oirat tribe of less than a thousand people. The outcome, of course, is self-evident.

Looking at the Zhou soldiers who were now ignoring the corpses of the Oirat people around them and laughing as they slaughtered sheep and cattle, they understood.

Besides them, there were about two hundred ragged, sallow-faced herdsmen. After interrogation, they were all found to be descendants of Han Chinese who had been taken from the Central Plains by the Oirat people.

The person in front of me is one of the most respected among the Han people.

"Reporting back to the General, I am a Han Chinese. According to my father, my ancestral home is Hancheng."

The Han Chinese shepherd looked at Liu Hu, whose face was full of murderous intent, and replied tremblingly.

"Have you talked to them? How many people don't want to come with us?"

"Everyone is willing to follow the general, but general, I beg you to arrange a carriage, since there are a few infants under one year old among us."

As he spoke, the Han Chinese prostrated himself on the ground, his face filled with fear.

If the general disagrees, those toddlers will surely die on the way.

"Sure! We can arrange carriages for all the children under five, but if we encounter the enemy, we won't be able to ensure their safety."

"If that really happens, then they can only blame their bad luck!" the Han Chinese man said with a bitter expression.

To be honest, not all Han Chinese were willing to go with Liu Hu and his men, but this Han Chinese understood that those who were unwilling to follow this army would suffer the same fate as the Oirat people not far away.

After he analyzed the pros and cons, the Han people who had been clamoring to take the cattle and sheep from the Oirat people and stay there no longer dared to cause trouble. They could only obediently help the Zhou army gather the livestock and fodder.

"You will select fifty men to form a squad and incorporate them into our unit. You will be the squad leader of this unit."

"I don't care how you arrange things, but if this team has even the slightest problem, you all know what will happen to you."

Liu Hu stared at the Han Chinese man and said coldly.

"yes!"

Liu Hu's emotionless gaze sent a chill down the Han man's spine. He knew that if anything went wrong with his team, they would all be wiped out.

Only a cold-blooded general would care whether they were Han Chinese or not.

After eating and drinking their fill, the army rested for a night and then continued westward following the directions of the Han people.

Wherever this detachment went, they left no Oirat tribe alive.

And so, after more than half a month of travel, Liu Hu and his detachment grew larger and larger.

Excluding the elderly and weak, and including the Han Chinese incorporated into the ranks, there are already 5,000 men, and the total number of people in the entire force has exceeded 10,000.

How far are we from Yumen Pass?

According to the Han people, this place is located directly west of Yumen Pass, about a hundred miles away.

After annihilating another Oirat tribe, Liu Hu asked Hu Cunmeng.

Hu Cunmeng had been temporarily dispatched by Liu Hu to serve as a commander of a thousand households. Although he was not officially appointed by the court, it was an expedient measure taken in an emergency.

Even Liu Hu himself, the deputy commander, was only temporarily appointed by Jia Daishan.

According to the original plan, after Liu Hu and his men arrived in the Western Regions, all they needed to do was disrupt the Oirat people's supply lines.

However, Liu Hu discovered that with only their small force, they simply couldn't completely cut off the Oirat people's supply lines. After all, the Western Regions were too vast, and there were no major checkpoints or supply routes.

The Oirat's provisions were all requisitioned from various places and transported to the front lines in more than a dozen routes.

These dozen or so grain routes are spread throughout the north and south of the Western Regions, with the furthest being nearly a thousand miles apart.

However, Liu Hu discovered that no matter which route the Oirat took, they always ended up with their supplies. They passed through the Yumen Pass and Yang Pass, eventually delivering the grain to the front lines in the Hexi Corridor.

Since that was the case, Liu Hu simply abandoned his plan to harass the rear and instead decided to return east to launch a surprise attack on Yumen Pass and Yang Pass, completely cutting off the Oirat people's supply lines.

He knew in his heart that if he did this, the Oirat people would definitely fight back desperately, and his detachment would be trapped in a hopeless situation.

But time was running out. Winter was approaching, and if they couldn't completely cut off the Oirat's supply lines and force them into a decisive battle, the hundreds of thousands of Zhou troops on the front lines would be in danger.

"Cunmeng, will you regret coming with me on this trip?"

Looking at the much more capable-looking Hu Cunmeng, Liu Hu asked with a smile.

"Do you regret it?" Upon hearing Liu Hu's question, Hu Cunmeng was lost in thought for a moment, as if recalling something.

He then shook his head with a wry smile: "It's impossible to say I have no regrets at all."

"I joined the army because my family couldn't make a living, but I never expected that after meeting the general, I would be in danger several times."

"Especially this time, not to mention the previous crossing of mountains and deserts, as long as we capture Yumen Pass and Yang Pass next, the final result will definitely be a nine-out-of-ten chance of death."

"But to say I regret it is not entirely true. I also know that we have to go on this trip, otherwise the Great Zhou will be in danger. At that time, more and more people in the world will not be able to afford to eat, and before long, it will be another chaotic world."

"Report!"

Just then, a scout came to report.

"General Qi, a group of Oirat people are escorting grain and fodder towards Yumen Pass, about thirty miles to the southwest."

"How many men are there?" Liu Hu asked hurriedly.

Although Liu Hu knew that his plan would put him in a desperate situation, he did not intend to act recklessly.

The Oirat people were probably too confident, thinking that their rear was safe. So Liu Hu and his men had been wreaking havoc in their rear for half a month, and the Oirat people didn't even notice.

Since that's the case, then don't blame Liu Hu for his elaborate deception.

He planned to disguise himself as a grain transport team of the Oirat people, sneak into Yumen Pass, and then take the pass with the help of those inside and outside.

Then it would be much easier to launch a surprise attack on Yangguan in the south.

"There were no Oirat people, only soldiers from the Western Regions, about a thousand people. The laborers transporting the grain were almost all Han Chinese, about ten thousand people."

Upon hearing the scout's report, Liu Hu was overjoyed; everything was settled.

After defeating the Turpan Khanate and the Yarkand Khanate, the Oirat people also carried out a policy of dividing and ruling the Western Regions.

The first-class citizens were naturally the Oirat Mongols, the second-class citizens were the local people of the Western Regions, and the Han Chinese who were captured by them could only become the third-class citizens.

Therefore, the Han people who were taken away by the Oirats not only suffered oppression from the Oirats, but also exploitation from the people of the Western Regions.

This is also why the Han people rescued by Liu Hu and his men were able to cooperate with them obediently.

After all, the Han people living in the Western Regions were suffering terribly.

"Puttila, it's up to you now."

Liu Hu and his group had been in the Western Regions for more than half a month, so it was impossible that they hadn't encountered any locals.

Putila was one of them. His ancestors had served as commanders of the Hami Guard of the Seven Guards of Guanzhong during the Ming Dynasty. When the Turpan Khanate annexed the Seven Guards of Guanzhong, his ancestors died in battle, and his family became slaves of the Turpan people.

When the Oirats arrived, their family had already been classified as Westerners by intermarrying with Westerners, thus escaping their status as slaves.

But they always remembered their Han Chinese bloodline and longed to return to the Central Plains one day, so he treated the Han people in the tribes under his jurisdiction very well.

This is also why Liu Hu was willing to keep him; those Western Region people who oppressed the Han people had long since gone to meet their masters.

Liu Hu and his group gathered a total of seven or eight hundred Western Region people who were loyal to the Central Plains and hated the Oirat people. He organized these Western Region people into a separate thousand-household unit, led by Putila.

"Don't worry, General. We are not like those traitors to the Lord. They sold their souls to those Yellow Cultists, so they should atone with their blood."

Influenced by Gushi Khan, the Oirat people generally believed in the Yellow Sect. Although Putila longed for the Central Plains, his ancestors had lived in the Western Regions for hundreds of years, and he was inevitably influenced by the locals and believed in Islam.

Therefore, they regarded those Western Region people who were loyal to the Oirat as traitors.

Although the Great Zhou Dynasty did not adhere to Islam, it did not suppress Muslims, so they had no psychological burden in pledging allegiance to the Great Zhou.

"Alright! You guys are in charge of drawing their attention, we'll surround them and wipe out this grain transport team in one fell swoop."

"yes!"

"Remember, those Han Chinese are our people. Never kill them indiscriminately unless absolutely necessary!"

"This subordinate obeys!"

Papati was originally just an ordinary small merchant from the Western Regions, but he was unwilling to be exploited by the Oirat people for the rest of his life, but he did not have the courage to resist them.

After all, since Genghis Khan's cavalry conquered this land, for hundreds of years, whether it was the Chagatai Khanate, the Eastern Chagatai Khanate, the Yarkand Khanate and the Turpan Khanate, or even the current Dörbet and Torgut tribes, all of them have ruled this land with the blood of the Golden Blood.

The Mongol cavalry's formidable reputation and brutality utterly swayed him, leaving him with no inclination to resist.

If you can't beat them, can't you at least join them?

So he donated most of his family fortune and converted to the Yellow Sect, which earned him the position of a chiliarch.

Although his official rank wasn't very high, Papati was already quite satisfied, because from then on, the Oirats no longer extorted money from him at will, and the taxes he had to pay were much less than those who believed in Islam.

Although he was not transferred to the front lines during the war between the Oirat people and the Great Zhou, he was given a lucrative job as an escort of grain supplies.