Nine 3
Liu Qingye suddenly realized: "So these bandits set up camp here and sent troops from here to attack the Uighurs!"
Moller also slapped his head and said, "I was wondering, the grassland is so big, and the cities they occupied are so far away from us, how could they come here to kill and burn people every now and then? It turns out they are hiding here!"
Liu Qingye suddenly jumped up: "Let's go back and report the news!"
Liu Qingye and Moler ran up the ridge in two steps. Although they met a group of Junggar soldiers on the way, they were not in trouble because they were wearing Junggar clothes. After climbing the ridge, they saw their horses grazing leisurely on the grassland opposite the canyon. They whistled. The two horses saw their masters, jumped up and ran towards them. The two met the horses and hurriedly rode back the way they came.
According to Liu Qingye's plan, they first went to the nearby Kyakhta tribe to report to the chief of the Reiza tribe, and then returned to the Ale tribe to inform the people of the Lantern Festival and Dan Ying. However, after arriving in Kyakhta, Moler saw that Liu Qingye's wound had recurred, and the black general's mane was dyed red, so he insisted not to let him run any more, and rushed back to the Ale tribe himself.
Reiza was shocked when he heard this. He didn't believe that the Junggar army gathered near his territory, but only attacked remote tribes. However, at the meeting of the thirteen tribes, he admired Liu Qingye's kung fu very much. Later, in the battle of Ajizi River, he heard that Liu Qingye risked his life to protect Kazakh civilians, so he looked at this Han boy differently. He immediately sent a warrior in the tribe, Heya, who was familiar with the terrain of Chelegou, to investigate, and personally helped Liu Qingye to rest in the room.
Not long after, Heya reported back: The Junggar camp was at the narrowest section of the Chergou Gorge, which was called "Tar" locally. There was an Awak Lake in it. The water was very salty and strange. People and animals would not sink if they fell into it. The lake was on the north bank, with a gentle terrain and easy access to the ridge. On the south bank, close to the Kyakhta tribe, the mountain was steep. The Junggar camp was easy to defend but difficult to attack. "Even so..." he said, "the Junggars are not as familiar with the Chergou Gorge as we are. The pass in Tar is easy for us to take. It is easier for us to attack from above than for them to attack from below."
Hearing this, Reiza pondered and said, "It seems that their troops are several times more than ours. It is impossible to wipe them all out in a short time. If we cannot wipe them out in one fell swoop, I am afraid we will get into trouble. We must discuss with those Han people. They have many tricks and may have a way."
Liu Qingye knew that Reiza supported the alliance with the Qing Dynasty and disagreed with the Chuan Deng Society. When he heard him say that the Han people "have many tricks", he probably still remembered the cheating of Menghu and Chen Luohui at the last Thirteen Tribes Conference: it was the two uncles Menghu and Chen Luohui who caused Reiza to lose the position of leader, so he was justified to hold such a grudge. However, although he was annoyed, he was still willing to discuss strategy with the predecessors of the Chuan Deng Society... He praised Dan Ying's broad-mindedness at the beginning, and in fact, his broad-mindedness was also admirable!
While he was meditating quietly, he listened to Reiza's discussions with his men. At dusk, he heard a commotion outside. It was the people from the Ale tribe and the Lantern Festival who had arrived.
Liu Qingye followed Reiza to the venue to meet everyone. He saw Cao Mengsheng's gloomy face, and knew that his master would not forgive him easily, so he did not dare to apologize. He thought: "I have decided not to kill Fu Chatao and Mr. Li. I just hope that this sneak attack on Junggar will be a great victory, and then I will go with my master to kill the old thief Fu Chakang."
As usual, he looked for Dan Ying in the crowd, but couldn't find her. He wondered, "Could it be that she came out to look for me last night and something happened?" Worried about this, he hurried to find Moler to ask, but the strange thing was that there was no sign of Moler in the crowd - not only Moler, but also Ashu, Utan, Zai and other people from the Ale tribe were all missing.
Reiza frowned and asked this question on behalf of Liu Qingye: "Why is Danying missing?"
Wang Chunshan replied, "This kid has a hot temper. He had a few arguments with everyone when he came out, and he's still being irritable in the back. He should be here soon."
Reiza stopped asking questions and said to Meng Hu in the crowd, "I know you have the most ideas. Come and take a look at the terrain of Chelegou."
Meng Hu was stunned, with a bit of embarrassment on his face, but he still walked to the center of the field and watched Reiza and Heya draw a topographic map of Chelegou on the sand. Heya explained while drawing, and Wang Chunshan, Cao Mengsheng and others gradually gathered around to think of a plan.
Liu Qingye knew nothing about fighting a war. Seeing that Dan Ying and the Ale tribe had not shown up yet, he asked Chen Luohui beside him, "Uncle Chen, what's wrong with Dan Ying?"
Chen Luohui said, "Isn't it her old temper? As soon as she heard that the Junggars were in Chelegou, she immediately wanted to attack Chelegou - how many people do you think the Junggars have, and how many people do we have? How can we attack by force? Your uncle Meng said that we should outsmart them, but this girl refused to listen - it's really infuriating!"
Liu Qingye said: "Then...then why didn't Master persuade her?"
Chen Luohui said: "Why didn't she persuade her? But the people of the Ale tribe obeyed her orders, and those Kazakhs were also possessed by some evil spirit, and they all supported her very much. When she shouted that anyone who was a warrior should follow her, those people responded."
Liu Qingye guessed that the Kazakhs had admired Dan Ying since he raised his arms and called on them to fight the Dzungars. The victory of the Ajizi River Battle with a smaller force was actually due to Cao Mengsheng's use of cattle, sheep and horses to distract the enemy. However, the Kazakhs, like many nomadic peoples of the grasslands, believe that a hero is one who dares to fight to the death. So in their opinion, Dan Ying is more worthy of admiration than Cao Mengsheng.
However, he didn't want to chat with Chen Luo about the heroes in the eyes of the Kazakhs at this moment. He was only worried about Dan Ying's safety: "You...you just let her go like this?"
Chen Luohui said, "How can that be possible! Mingxin girl and Wu Sijie have caught her from behind, and Cheng Anren is following them too. As long as they can pull this stubborn girl back, everything will be fine."
"Oh..." Liu Qingye responded, but thought in his heart: With Dan Ying's temper, if I want to subdue her, I'm afraid I really need to use force.
Just as I was thinking about it, I heard Reiza shouting, "What? Go down to Lake Awak? How can this be possible?"
Liu Qingye turned around and saw Reiza looking at Menghu with a puzzled look on her face. Menghu smiled and said, "Didn't you say that no matter whether it's a human or an animal, no one will sink in Awak Lake? Let's go to the Awak River and perform a ritual for the Dzungar people!"
Everyone was puzzled. Meng Hu smiled and said, "I heard that most of the Mongolian Tartars in the four Walas believe in Lamaism. This Junggar must be the same. We can go to Lake Awak in the dark and scare them by pretending to be ghosts and force them to come here--" He pointed to the Tal Pass and said, "This place is so difficult to pass by, so we can catch them all here!"
Everyone was stunned. They didn't expect Meng Hu to come up with such a weird idea. Reiza asked, "How did you decide that the Junggars would come to Awak Lake to see us pretending to be ghosts?"
Meng Hu pointed at the map again and said, "Let's send someone to lead them down from the hillside here. They will never expect that we will catch them off guard first, and then lead them all the way to Lake Awak and scare them half to death. By then, they will know that we are going down from the south side of the lake, and they will definitely flee to the pass on the north side of the lake..."
"Excellent!" Chen Luohui praised, "Excellent, it looks like we're going to have a grand opera on the lake today, but I don't know how this Lama opera will be performed!"
Meng Hu said: "We don't know. How could the Junggars have seen what their gods look like? Anyway, we just want to scare them. It would be best if we let my second brother plan this matter--"
Everyone thought that before joining the Lantern Festival, Monk Liaoyuan traveled around the world and had once been to Tibet, where he studied martial arts with the Yellow Sect lamas. It was said that he fought against the three great masters of the Yellow Sect with the Shaolin Bodhidharma Fist and ended up in a draw. So he must have known something about the mysteries of Lamaism.
Monk Liaoyuan has always been quite proud of his battles against the three great masters of the Yellow Sect. After hearing what Meng Hu said, he immediately said, "Haha, I do know. Just tell everyone to dress up like the real ones." After saying that, he told Heya to prepare grease, torches, musical instruments and other items.
At this time, they heard a commotion outside the venue. They looked over and saw that it was Wu Shuiqing, Li Mingxin and Cheng Anren who had brought Dan Ying, followed by a group of young warriors from the Ale tribe and herdsmen from the Kazakh tribe . It was obvious that Dan Ying was dissatisfied that they were not allowed to attack Junggar, and the Uyghurs and Kazakhs were very supportive of her, so they came into the venue and made a lot of noise.
When the group approached, Liu Qingye saw that Dan Ying looked haggard, and knew that she must have not slept a wink since she rode out to look for him at night. He felt guilty and distressed, and wanted to go up and say a few words, but Dan Ying glared at Wang Chunshan and others with anger and shouted, "Have you finished the discussion?" Then he turned to Reyiza and said, "Uncle Reyiza, why are you as annoying as them? Why don't you go to Chelegou to fight the Dzungars?"
Reiza said: "Oh, you are just like your father, you are impetuous and impatient!"
Dan Ying said, "What do you mean by rash? Uighur warriors are not like that, they don't fight the enemy when they see him! Uncle Reiza, I am the leader of the thirteen tribes, you should listen to me - I don't want to discuss anything here, I just want to kill the Junggars!"
Reiza shook her head and said, "There are too many Junggar people..."
"So what if there are too many?" Dan Ying said angrily, "We will kill as many as we can. Who is afraid of who?"
"Yes, that's right -" Meng Hu interrupted, "We are going to kill the Junggars now. This is going to be a tough battle. We have to make sure everyone is well fed before we go, right?"
At this moment, Dan Ying was stunned and speechless.
