My years as a soldier

"What now?"

On the top of the wall, the people who had been surrounding Wang Du all focused their attention on Chen Fan.

"Captain Chen, what do you think?"

The adjutant who was holding the letter of appointment changed his words, but when Chen Fan listened, he felt his heart skip a beat, as if stabbed by those two words.

His eyes were full of tears, his brows were tightly furrowed, his face was still in pain, but his mind had already started to run rapidly.

The sun was setting, and the moonlight shone on the blood-stained stone castle, reflecting silvery light.Chen Fan remained silent for a long time, and a veteran in the crowd stomped his feet and spoke in a low voice.

"Of course we will continue to defend. We can't call Lieutenant Wang's death in vain... Besides, didn't we send someone to ask for help the day before yesterday? Now as long as we can persist until the reinforcements arrive, Langya Fort will not be lost!"

"Captain Chen, what do you think?"

The adjutant turned to Chen Fan again, and everyone was waiting for Chen Fan's response.

"Forehead……"

Chen Fan suddenly raised his head and let out a long sigh.

"Each team counts the number of people first, and collects the name tags of the dead brothers. In addition, Lao Li and Zhao, you go and check our remaining food, grass and supplies. Now, while the Uyghurs have subsided, let's start cooking."

"Yes! Eat and drink enough to have the strength to fight!"

Amidst the yelling of a group of veterans in the regiment, the fortress regained its calm again.Experienced soldiers set the fire on the inside of the stone wall so that the Uighurs would not see the fireworks on the fort.Each team collected the corpses of their comrades-in-arms, just like a routine, coldly removed the wooden tags on the corpses and threw them into small boxes, and finally they were presented to Chen Fan.

"37 dead, [-] injured. Among the wounded, three were seriously injured. I'm afraid they won't survive tonight. In addition, the military rations are enough for us to last for seven days. If we save more, it is not impossible to survive for another ten days. However, our The arrows are almost shot, and the Uyghur arrows cannot be shot with our crossbows. After a few hours, after dark, we can send some quick-legged people down to pick up the arrows."

Adjutant Du, with firm eyes, held the wooden box that smelled faintly of corpses, bent over and ran across the wall, and ran to Chen Fan carefully.

"Oh, I see."

There was no expression on Chen Fan's face, but he looked much calmer than when the battle just started.Adjutant Du seemed to be still waiting for his further instructions, but they looked at each other for two or three seconds, but Chen Fan still didn't say a word, so he had no choice but to put down the wooden box and back away from Chen Fan.

Yan Zhaozhong was sitting next to Chen Fan. Chen Fan looked as stable as Mount Tai now, but he seemed to be getting more and more impatient.

"Old Chen, what on earth are you thinking? You don't... really want to be like Captain Wang?"

Yan Zhaozhong frowned tightly, he looked at Chen Fan as if he was looking at some kind of incomprehensible monster, there was a trace of fear in his eyes, but more of a puzzlement.

"What's wrong with Captain Wang?" Chen Fan's voice was cold, "Did he do something wrong?"

"No...but didn't you say before that only by retreating can you survive?"

Yan Zhaozhong's voice was very low, he was afraid that his words would be heard by other people in the castle.

"yes……"

There was a sigh in Chen Fan's voice.

"but I……"

"how?"

Yan Zhaozhong stared straight at Chen Fan, the moonlight shone behind the wall, Chen Fan's company was buried in the shadow under the wall, even though he was very close, Yan Zhaozhong still couldn't see the expression in Chen Fan's eyes clearly.All he heard was a thin inaudible inhalation.

"Uh... I have never received such a great benefit from others in my life."

He whispered, as if weeping.

"what?"

The more Yan Zhaozhong listened, the more confused he became.

"Eh……"

Hearing Chen Fan's sigh, he patted Yan Zhaozhong's shoulder with one hand.Yan Zhaozhong could feel the heavy touch of that powerful big hand pressing on his shoulder, but felt that there was some inexplicable tenderness in it.

"I owe my life to the Beiting army." Chen Fan said, retracted his hand, and beat his chest.

"but……"

Yan Zhaozhong frowned.

"What are you thinking, old Chen, should we withdraw or defend?"

"Tsk... you kid, how do you know to ask this?"

Chen Fan clicked his tongue suddenly, with a mocking expression on his face.

"I don't want to die."

Yan Zhaozhong's voice was firm, but also gloomy.

"Wait." Chen Fan said lightly, "Wait, you will know..."

In the cold night on the fortress, no one really fell asleep, even if they were all sitting in a corner, huddled together, with their eyes closed.

On the beacon towers at both ends of the garrison, the flag bearer was holding the flagpole that was about to fall, chewing something in his mouth, occasionally opening his eyes, through the small holes in the wall around him, occasionally glancing at the flaming Uighurs on the wasteland barracks.

Safe for now.

The flag bearer closed his eyes and was about to rest for a while, when he suddenly heard a burst of noise from the top of the city.

The flag bearer suddenly opened his eyes, lowered his body a few steps and jumped off the beacon tower.

"Who?"

"What? What's wrong?"

The people closest to him opened their eyes one after another.

"What's the smell? Hey! Wake up!"

"Ah...why is there such a strong smell of smoke?"

Soon, everyone on the garrison who was still alive hurriedly straightened up.

Smoke drifted from the small room under the fort, and several people lowered their bodies and hurriedly ran over to the place where they stored grain and grass.

"It's on fire! The storage room is on fire!"

"Hey! Keep your voice down! There must be Uighur scouts around here—"

One person covered the mouth of the other, but fear and anger spread quickly among the crowd at the same time.

"Go down and have a look, whoever goes!"

A few people hastily opened the wooden door on the top of the storage room, only to be greeted with thicker and thicker smoke.

"It's over... Our food and grass are all gone..."

The soldier who saw the inside of the storage room first knelt down and let the smoke spray out from the stone castle.The soldiers looked at each other in blank dismay, some were terrified, some were sorry, but more people had nothing but anger on their faces.

"Who did it! I killed him!"

"Could it be the Uighurs who set the fire?"

"Are you so stupid? If the Uighurs can set fire here, can you and I stand here intact?"

"But why would any of us set fire!"

There was crying in that voice.It is true that at the moment of being surrounded by heavy soldiers, coupled with the lack of food, the soldiers' heartstrings have already been stretched to the extreme, and it only needs to be touched lightly to break.

"Stop arguing."

Suddenly, a gloomy male voice came from among the crowd.The soldiers quickly recognized that it was Chen Fan's voice, their new captain.

"Captain Chen! Take a look! This..."

"Stop arguing." With a sullen face and the moonlight behind his back, Chen Fan stood up straight on the fort, even ignoring the danger of being discovered by the Uighur soldiers below the city.

"I set it on fire."

He said lightly.

Obviously, the first reaction of everyone in the second group was blank.They reacted for a while before someone finally questioned.

"why?"

"Lieutenant Chen...why did Lieutenant Chen set fire to it?"

"Don't you all want to know my future strategy? I've made it clear now that I've left enough food and grass for each of you for two days, and the rest will be burned. Those who want to live, tonight at three o'clock at midnight, follow me Break through! I tell you clearly, I don't intend to defend the city, you either follow me, or die here - those who stay, I respect you as a man. But that's all, death is death , There is nothing after that. But those who want to live... must show the determination to die, and kill a bloody way with me!"

As Chen Fanding said, his eyes swept across the faces of every soldier.

There was still some anger in them, but soon, someone got up and stood behind Chen Fan.

"Captain Chen, I'll follow you."

"I also……"

"Captain Chen, listen to you."

Gradually, more and more people stood by Chen Fan, but even so, Chen Fan could still feel the disgusted eyes from the crowd.Yes, he did voluntarily give up the garrison. As the general of the army who should lead his troops to stand firm, he took the initiative to lead his men to flee. He even secretly burned the food and grass in the fortress...

These are the worst actions for a captain, or even Tang Bing.But if they don't do this, if they guard the food and grass, wait for the reinforcements who don't know when to come, and face an enemy twenty times their own, what will happen?

Chen Fan doesn't know if Langya Fort will be lost, but he knows that more and more people from the second regiment will die, and these sacrifices will not be included in the annals of Tang Dynasty, and all people in the world will not know, and they Such a group of people are sacrificing for the Tang Dynasty, and they don't even care who this piece of land in the Western Regions belongs to.And even Wang Du said that he wanted to call the second group to work.

Then why didn't Wang Du take the initiative to withdraw his troops at the beginning?Because it violated the military law, no matter how you excused it afterwards, it would become the eternal shame of the second regiment. As long as it was from the second regiment, in the Beiting army, this shame would never be washed away for a lifetime.

But now it's different.The second regiment led by Wang Du successfully blocked the attack on the first day of the Uighur army's attack.If they leave at this time, they are no longer deserters, but heroes who desperately resisted when the army was overwhelming.Evacuation at this time is not an escape, but a contingency move to preserve strength.As long as this is reported to the Ministry of War, no one will be punished.

Chen Fan never had such a legitimate opportunity to retreat.But Wang Du left this opportunity to him, and Chen Fan would seize it no matter what.

-

"Okay, everyone, get ready. At three o'clock, we will break out from the southwest."

As Chen Fan said, he returned to his seat with a sullen face.In the end, all the remaining soldiers of the regiment stood by his side one after another, maybe just not to be abandoned, or simply to stand with their former comrades-in-arms.But in any case, the result was that the second regiment was determined to break through with all members.But this time, Chen Fan stood at the forefront of the team.

In the dead of night, in the Uyghur camp, horses could occasionally be heard whistling, but no matter how many, there was only the slight sound of wood chips cracking in the bonfire.This is the time when people are most likely to get sleepy at night. The Uighurs probably never expected that the Tang army, who had resisted bravely during the day, would choose to break through at night, so even their night soldiers were drowsy at this time. This is defenseless.After all, according to Tang Jun's usual approach, they would not give up any of the forts if they did not resist desperately.

But Chen Fan did not follow Tang Jun's usual path.A team of less than 200 people, under the cover of night, quickly approached the Uyghur army.The [-]-man legion surrounded the entire Langya Fort in a ring shape, but this also meant that the troops were scattered.

The night wind was gloomy and cold, and clusters of bonfires radiated heat, wrapping the exhausted grassland warriors nearby, and suddenly, with more than a hundred people roaring like crazy, the Tang army's team was like a sharp knife, only piercing the Uyghur army. Dreamland.