On the snow-covered grassland, a team of Xi warriors with braided hair and rode back to the camp of the Ahui tribe, panting to the tribe leader Su Zhi, saying that they had seen the leopard flag. They pointed to the northwest where dark clouds were low and wind and rain were mixed.

"How long have you been back after seeing the leopard flag?" Looking at the extremely tired tribal knight, Qi Jin, who was from the Xi tribe Ahui tribe, was shocked, but he tried his best to keep his face calm. While sending people to summon the leaders of the tribe, he asked.

"We rode a horse for three days!" said the warrior who had been ordered to lead a team of people to inquire north.

"The cavalry of Tongluo is really here to fight. Are you here to rob or pass by?" A tribe leader asked worriedly. He had heard that the Bayegu people attacked the Chou tribe and went south to rob the Khitan territory. Now he heard that the Tongluo people came over again, and the older head man looked full of worry.

Su Zhi, who had just taken over as the leader of the tribe, was still young, but in his early thirties, but he was known as the number one warrior of the tribe. At this time, when he heard the army of Tongluo people coming, he felt irritated, but he was desperately pretending to be calm and relaxed. Facing the leaders of the tribes surrounded by the tent, he nodded, "There is a war on the grassland. The caravans who I sent to the south to trade with the Han people came back to tell me that the Turkic Khan Du Lan on the Eastern Grassland is now dissatisfied with the Sui emperor in the Central Plains, and the Central Plains Emperor was also dissatisfied with Du Lan.

, intentionally wanted to support the Tuli Khan in the northern part of the Eastern Grassland to replace Dulan Khan. At the beginning of the year, Dulan Khan attacked the border of the Sui Dynasty, but failed to report the news to his father-in-law of the Sui Dynasty. It is said that this time, Dulan Khan had secretly contacted Datou Khan from the Western Regions and wanted to destroy Tuli first and then attack the Sui Dynasty." Speaking of this, Su Zhi sighed, "Now the Tiel people in the north are moving, which is increasingly proof of the truth of the information. Now the Bayegu people and Tongluo Tiel people sent troops eastward at this time, and their intentions are already quite obvious."

The leaders sitting in front of the brazier in the tent were all full of worries, "Damn black people, they fight with the Sui Kingdom, why do they always use us to attack first?"

"The strong prey on the weak has always been like this." Su Zhi sighed.

The Tiel people were preparing to respond to the order of the Turkic Khan to attack the Sui River, but at this time they came to attack the tribes such as the Wu, Khitan, Xi and even Shiwei in the East, which seemed a bit inexplicable. However, the leaders of the Xi people who had lived on the grassland for so many years were very clear about all this. In the eyes of the Turks, the Sui Kingdom in the Central Plains was a rich and powerful dynasty, while the tribes in the East were much weaker. Therefore, before the grassland was preparing to attack the Central Plains, they had to plunder the semi-nova, half-fishing and hunting tribes in the East. The plunder and attack the tribes in the East were not only to prepare materials for the upcoming war, but also to weaken the tribes that deter the East, so that they could have no worries when they headed south.

"Should we run?" asked an elderly leader.

Su Zhi shook his head, "We can't run away from the leopard cavalry. They are numerous and powerful. The iron cavalry is as fast as the clouds and as fast as the leopards. No matter how fast we run, we can't escape their pursuit. Besides, winter is already in the moment, and the colder the day after tomorrow. If we give up the camp for winter now, even if we run away, it will be difficult for us to survive in this severe cold winter. However, we cannot just sit and wait for death. We should slaughter cattle and sheep, hide them separately in secret places, and hide our tribe members in the forest, and then gather all the tribe warriors, and we will fight with them."

The leopard flag is the banner of the Tongluo people. The Tongluo people are a branch of the Tiel people, and it is a large tribe among them. The totems of the Tiel people are like wolves, but the Tiel tribe is numerous, and Tongluo means leopard in the Turkic language. Nowadays, the wolf-headed flag is more of a symbol of the blue Turkic Turks in the Turkic language, so the Tongluo people in Tiel are more often attacking the leopard cavalry. The Tongluo people are a large tribe among the nine surnames of Tiel. Especially after the migration of the Turkic Khan's tent south, the Tiel people and other Tiel people developed rapidly in Mobei. According to Su Zhi, the Tongluo people are a very powerful group among the Tiel people in Mobei. They have won more than 40,000 soldiers and have a population of more than 200,000 households, many of which are captured from Shiwei, Xi, Khitan, and Wu tribes in the East in recent years.

The total population of the five major tribes of the Xi tribe did not have 100,000 tents, and the total number of soldiers of each tribe was not 40,000. Tongluo, who had 40,000 victories, was just a branch of the Tielite people. The total number of Tielite tribes in the north, south of the desert and the western regions was said to have exceeded one million tents. This is the basis for the Tielite tribes to provide up to 400,000 string control personnel to the Turkic Khanate in its heyday. The once unified Turkic Khanate had hundreds of thousands of troops, and the troops were divided into three categories. One was the Fuli, mainly Ashina and Ashide.

It is the guards. The number of Khan imperial guards is less than 100,000, but it is the most elite. The largest number of Turkic cavalry comes from the Black Turks who have surrendered to the Turks and gave up their original tribal titles, and those tribal armies such as the Northern Tiel, who still did not give up their tribal titles and did not rebel. These tribal armies are called the String Controllers, and can reach 400,000 at most. The Turks also have a unit, the Hu Qi, also known as Turks, which is a unit composed of the nine surnames of Zhaowu in the Western Regions, and also the Hu soldiers in the eyes of the Turks.

It was precisely because the Turks once had such a large number of troops that all of them were able to suppress the Northern Zhou, Northern Qi and Goguryeo in the east. The West destroyed powerful countries like Yanda and also spun the Persian Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire. If the Western Turks had not been fighting with Persia when they were unified in the north of the Central Plains, if the Western Turks had transferred their troops to the east, the process of Central Plains unification might have been greatly disturbed.

When the Turks were strong, these small tribes in the east, whether they were Shiwei, Wu, Khitan or Xi, were all relying on the Turks. The current tribe leader of Suzhi, Qijin, was the Turkic official position obtained when the Xi tribe surrendered to the Turks.

Compared with the powerful Turks, the Xi tribe is too weak. Even if the Tiel tribe in the Turks is only one tribe, it is still far superior to the Xi tribe. What's more, although the Xi tribe has a history of hundreds of years, they have not been able to form an effective tribe alliance since they were separated from the Murong Xianbei until now. Until now, the Xi tribe has five major tribes, and the Ahui tribe is the strongest, but each tribe is always free from surging the river.

Water is not united with each other. In many cases, tribes often conflict with each other. The five major tribes of the Xi tribe have hundreds of thousands of people, and the main army can have seven or eight thousand people. If the auxiliary soldiers are added, they can also raise about 30,000 tribal soldiers, but it is difficult for the tribal soldiers to be gathered in this way to fight against the leopard cavalry from the north of the Mo. Previously, the Pai Yegu people plundered thousands of Xi people on the dam, but the Shihe tribe's Shi Jindi Du did not dare to say a word.

The Ahui clan can recruit 2,000 elite soldiers and 4,000 auxiliary soldiers. However, facing the Tongluo tribe who were fighting against the Leopard Cavalry, few of the heads dared to fight.

"We must fight back. If we just escape, we will escape for a while, but in the end we will be destroyed by cold and hunger. Although the Leopard tribe is powerful, they come from afar and it is impossible for the whole tribe to come. What they come may be just a part of it. We can contact the other four tribes to send troops to fight them. Last time the Chuhe tribe was attacked by Bayegu people, he suffered heavy losses. I believe they were also angry with the Tieler people, and the other tribes were similar. If we were still a mess, they would not be able to escape when we were defeated. We can unite and protect ourselves. What's more, the biggest enemy of the Turks was the Sui Kingdom in the Central Plains, and we are now dependent on the Sui Kingdom and hold on. When the Sui Kingdom will send troops to help us."

The leaders believed Su Zhi's words. Although they did not think that the Sui State would send troops to help them, this was like a hope. Besides, they really had no other way to go.

The soldiers in the camp began to send orders to the Xi people camps everywhere with Su Zhi's command arrows, gathered the Xi people soldiers to gather, and let the Xi people from various tribes retreat and hide in the forests in the east. In just two days, the Xi people camps scattered everywhere had completed the retreat. They hid many of their belongings that they had not had time to take away in the snow in the nearby forest, and then drove cattle and sheep and pulled the cart and went east.

In a forest, Su Zhi raised a flag here again, and three golden deer were displayed on the flag. The deer was the totem of the Xi people, and the three golden deer were the symbols of the Ahui clan. Only the strongest Ahui clan can have three golden deer.

More tribal leaders and elders gathered in Suzhi's camp, and the first step has been implemented, but the next step is that these elders are unsure of how to deal with the upcoming Leopard Cavalry.

A tribe leader expressed his opinion, "We should continue to retreat eastward, at least we must join forces with the warriors of the other four tribes, so that we can be sure of a battle."

Su Zhi's son, sixteen-year-old Kedu, jumped up and shouted: "Coward! Why do you put such despair into our ears? Our Ahui tribe is not the Chuhe tribe, and we cannot let a group of Tiel robbers flee in panic." As he said that, he spat on the ground, expressing his disdain.

"You little kid who has not even paid for what a woman feels like, you only know how to show off your courage..."

Su Zhi raised his hand and stopped the angry elder from refuting and cursing, "What the elder said is not without reason. It should be more steady, but it is not completely wrong. You must never lose your courage."

"We cannot turn around and flee without fighting, but when facing a strong enemy, we cannot just show off our courage and fight nonsense." Su Zhi slowed down, "We must use the familiar terrain and the current bad weather to not fight head-on with these leopards. We should attack sneak attacks, constantly attack and retreat. We retreat to the south, approach Huaihuang, and lead them to the foot of the Sui people's Great Wall!"

"Huh!" The Xi people shouted in unison, all of them admiring the strategies proposed by the young leader. The Leopard tribe is very strong, but even the Turks, the master of the Leopard tribe, cannot defeat the Sui people in the Central Plains. Then these Leopard tribes were destroyed in front of the Sui people.

"We need to send people to the Great Wall to report to the Sui people, ask them for reinforcements and prepare them!"

"I'm willing to go!" many people shouted loudly, rushing for the mission.

"Let Kedu go." Su Fu pointed his son.

After the night was late, Su Zhi called his son Kedu into his tent alone.

The two of them sat cross-legged on a cowhide face to face, baking on fire and drinking horse milk tea. Su Zhi picked up the leather bag and took a big sip, and then handed it to his son with satisfaction. The son also picked up and took a big sip.

"Tell me, what do you think."

"I want to stay and fight the Leopard Man, but I don't want to leave at this time. The battle is about to come, but I leave, which makes me look like a coward."

"Are you crazy?" Su Zhi shook his head and sighed.

But Kedu insisted, "I know the strength of the leopard cavalry, but I am not afraid of death. I want to fight side by side with my tribal brothers."

Su Zi shook his head desperately, "No, I have decided, you will go to the Great Wall tomorrow morning."

"I am a Xi warrior, I am already sixteen." Kedu shouted, "I have hunted bears alone and tigers and leopards. The bear, tiger, and leopard skins hanging in my tent are all hunted by me. I rode a horse quickly, and could shoot the hawk-eyes in the sky with one arrow."

"No one of my peers has ever beaten you, and your riding and shooting is the strongest. Even when I was at your age, I didn't have such good riding and shooting skills." Su Zhi said, "Everyone knows these things, what's the use of saying it? Do I not know? But you have to know that you are the son of my Su Zhi, and you will inherit my position in the future and command the Ahui tribe. What do you think is the most important thing for a tribal leader? Are you brave? No, bravery is just the most basic requirement of a tribal leader. As a leader, you have to consider many things. Just like now, you are the son of my Su Zhi, and you are the young leader of the tribe. At this time, your position is not to stay here as a warrior to charge. At this time, you should represent me, our Ahui tribe, and even our Xi tribe, go to the Great Wall, go to the Sui Kingdom, and ask for reinforcements. That is what you should do."
Chapter completed!