If we bring other people, especially those who follow the rules, Su Dingfang would be absolutely unwilling to do so. A general is not bound by the orders of the king when he is away from home. We are already fighting a war outside. If we have to wait for instructions for everything, with the speed of communication in this era, the food will probably be cold before we can even start eating.
So this guy would rather have autonomy, but Li Xiang knows how bold he is, and of course it is impossible to give him all the power. Huo Qubing is also a proactive person on the battlefield, but because he came out of the system, as long as Li Xiang sets a line for him, he will never cross this line.
After a brief preparation, the two men immediately set off with 5,000 cavalry. Looking at the backs of the two men, Li Xiang didn't know whether it was a blessing or a curse. Anyway, he equipped them with everything they should have. Along the way, they could destroy a large number of rebels and enhance the prestige of the Tang Dynasty. However, they must not encounter bad weather. If they really encounter it, even the most elite army will not be able to escape.
Those who surrendered from the Xueyantuo all had a thorn in their hearts. There were no members of theirs in the pursuit team sent out, which meant that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince still did not trust them. Now they had killed so many people on the grassland, and their hands were stained with the blood of their own people. If they could not get Li Xiang's recognition, they would have no way to live in the future.
So just as Li Xiang expected, these people now have to try their best to show themselves and let Li Xiang see their abilities, so that they can have a future. The children have been sent to Chang'an to go to school, and their future lies in the Tang Dynasty court. The better they do, the smoother the road will be for their children in the future.
The camera goes back to Su Dingfang. They traveled three hundred miles in one day. The further west they went, the smaller the population was. If the natural environment here was a little better, Xueyantuo Khan probably wouldn't have run to other people's territory.
"Hachitamu, is this your Khan's flag?"
Hachitamu was the guide of Xueyantuo. He was familiar with all the terrain of Xueyantuo. This time he was sent to serve as a guide for Su Dingfang. Following Su Dingfang's hand, he saw a tattered flag in the distance.
"To answer the general, that was the Khan's flag."
What surprised Su Dingfang was that he was a member of the Xueyantuo clan, and when he saw this flag, he not only did not feel any affinity, but actually gritted his teeth.
"Your reaction is a bit wrong. Do you have such a strong hatred for the Khan of Xueyantuo?"
Huo Qubing, who was standing nearby, also noticed that something was wrong.
"Generals, you don't know that whenever this flag enters our tribe, it means bandits and demons are coming. They do whatever they want in our tribe, leaving us only a few days' worth of dry food and taking away everything else. For example, they don't want our skinny livestock, but they take away all the fat ones. If they come across a beautiful girl, no matter if she's someone else's wife, they'll take her away too."
When Hachitamu talked about these people, he clenched the scimitar in his hands. If those people were still there, he would have wanted to go over and chop them all up. His youngest son died in the heavy snow because he did not have enough nutrition. He had clearly prepared supplies for the whole family, but when these people came, they had nothing. His younger brother resisted these people and was eventually shot to death by them.
It is not an exaggeration to say that there is a deep hatred between them. The reason why Li Xiang was able to gain a foothold in Xueyantuo so quickly was actually that Xueyantuo Khan helped him a lot. He himself did not implement benevolent policies on the grassland, and those people in his tribe did not give him a straight face. If he dared to do something a little too much, those people would dare to do it ten times more.
"Now you should feel better. This is the nth flag we've found. Every time we find one, there are more than twenty dead people. There are also some we haven't found, probably buried by the heavy snow. This time they fled west, and they must have suffered a lot along the way."
Su Dingfang pointed at the corpses around and said that those people had ashen faces and it was obvious that they had not eaten for a long time. Xueyantuo Khan fled in a hurry with his men and it was impossible for them to take all the daily necessities with them. They could only satisfy some of them.
These people usually rely on the power of Xueyantuo Khan, but they are not his confidants. When there are not enough daily necessities, these people are the first to be abandoned.
"General, you're right. They are our Khan's Wolf Guards. Most of them are from the Khan's own tribe, with only a few selected from other places. They lost some during the battle with the Turks, and then lost some more during the battle with some people within the tribe. I estimate that there are only about a thousand left now."
Hearing these people have such a name, Su Dingfang sighed beside him. No matter how glorious you were in the past, you are so miserable now that you have gone downhill and there is not even a place to bury your head.
"Let's not talk about anything else. Our route should be correct. Let everyone rest for two hours, and then we will continue the pursuit. Also, warn all soldiers: no one is allowed to remove the black sand from their eyes. Anyone who dares to do so will be immediately beaten with thirty lashes."
Because of snow blindness, Li Xiang ordered a lot of black gauze from the mainland. These things are equivalent to sunglasses when covered on the eyes.
However, many people felt uncomfortable moving forward with such things, so some people took them off without permission. Today, more than 30 soldiers could not see the road ahead clearly, so Su Dingfang had to tell them in an order that no one could violate military orders.
When talking about this, Su Dingfang suddenly thought of another thing. We can't see things clearly, and they must be the same. No wonder there are so many corpses around, and these corpses are in groups of more than ten people, and the distance between them is not that close.
It should be because these people have lost their sight and can only follow the sound of horse hooves in the distance. However, relying on sound to determine the direction will still lead to some errors. At the beginning, they can still keep up, but over time, the errors will become bigger and bigger, and eventually they will get separated from the main force.
Xueyantuo Khan was busy escaping and had no chance to gather these people, so they became frozen corpses on the grassland...