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Chapter 35 Chapter 39
Shen Ce and the second senior brother Zhang He have a very deep relationship.
This senior brother was a Confucian general, good at playing the qin, and had high morals, so he was jealous. Due to half Tuyuhun blood, he was humiliated in the north. That year, Shen Ce had just joined the army and felt sad in his heart, but because of the confrontation between the enemy countries, he could not get a letter. After defecting to Tuyuhun, Zhang He was highly regarded due to his outstanding martial arts skills, and was soon crowned king, and he was the Zuo Xianwang who was on a par with the crown prince.
It is a pity that the relatives of Zhang He's family were beheaded long ago, even if he was named king, he was alone.
For Shen Ce, the north is the enemy, and the west is also the enemy. No matter where they are, the two brothers are destined to have a life-and-death battle.
The banquet was beside a curved river, surrounded by tents on three sides, and the eyes could look up at the sky.
When Shen Ce arrived, the Tuyu army generals looked over, and there were actually a hundred people sitting there. He sat down calmly, and smiled at his brother. The two did not mention the war, but just gossip: "The younger brother's father passed away back then, and he had to go back to take care of his mother and sister before leaving the school. I heard that your sister is now in the military camp?"
"If you lose the battle tomorrow," Zhang He asked solemnly, "Do you want to take care of her for your brother?"
In the moonlight, he shook his head: "My sister has a strong temper, so you don't need to trouble your brother."
The two brothers exchanged cups. Just after a tour, Zhang He's eyes were already red, and he asked Shen Ce to leave early on the grounds that he was unable to drink. The deeper the love, the shallower the words, the brotherhood in this life is over, there is nothing to say, the rest will be handed over to the battlefield of tomorrow.
When Shen Ce left, someone behind him called out, "Mu Ye."
He stopped.
"If I lose, send my body back to the North."
Zhaozhao couldn't wait in the tent with peace of mind, so she went out and waited for her brother.
Soldiers patrolling at night walked in front of the torches, and shadows passed in front of Zhaozhao one by one. She waited anxiously.
In the past, Zhaozhao always wondered, how did those battles in which less wins more and tens of thousands of soldiers repel hundreds of thousands of troops were accomplished? Yu Bingshu understands that those battles never kill the last person. A commander who can transport troops properly can hit more than 70% of the enemy's casualties, and the enemy will inevitably collapse, and the battle will be won.
Therefore, pawns are chess pieces, and generals are those who play chess.
And tonight, the chess players in the southern border have not returned...
Before Shen Ce left, he drew up a layout plan.
The soldiers began to leave the barracks and go to the formation. The infantry went first, and the cavalry led their horses in line. In front of her eyes, these are all clumps of black shadows.
"The general is back!" someone whispered in her ear.
Brother's shadow turned over and dismounted, threw the whip to the person beside him, and strode towards her.
As soon as she smiled, Shen Ce put his hand on her shoulder, and suddenly the weight fell. A man in his twenties, with a strong body trained for many years of marching, had no roots under his weak feet.
"How far is the tent..." He asked in a deep voice, and asked the pair of brothers a few steps away.
Not far away are the soldiers who lined up to leave the camp.
The two brothers wanted to step forward to help, but Shen Ce stopped him in a low voice. He pretended to be drunk and hugged Zhaozhao. In the severe pain of the wound and the hallucination of the poison eating his body, he restrained, "...don't make a sound."
The blood-red liquid dripped onto the grass.
The blood flowed down from Shen Ce's body, soaking the clothes on the lower body... It was still flowing to the ground, sliding down the leaves into the soil.
Zhaozhao suddenly laughed: "Brother, how much did you drink? General Zhang is really hospitable. It's alright, if you get drunk, all your kindness will be gone," she continued, "I can only give it a shot today."
She did not let the two generals help him.
If two generals help, it will definitely attract the attention of the soldiers not far away, and then attract a few more generals. And she is a girl. She and her brother are gossiping when drunk, and the generals have long been surprised.
Soldiers will also get in the way of the general's family affairs, avoid suspicion, and don't watch much.
"Brother, lean on me, I can move my back." She set up Shen Ce.
He smiled weakly: "Can even my brother move on his back?"
...
At her aunt's house, she often thinks about the days when her brother ran away on her back when she was a child. She thinks that she was too delicate in her childhood, and she is afraid that she will drag Shen Ce down again in the future, so she carries firewood and water to practice strength.
As she walked all the way, blood dripped all the way. When she entered the tent, her shoes and skirt were all covered in blood.
Except for the second general who was in the tent, Shen Ce was not allowed to call the military doctor, nor the military division, and no one was allowed to speak up. After he repeatedly stressed that he could not disclose the matter, he only left a sentence of "go for the antidote" and fell into a brief coma.
"The general is like this, why don't you make a statement?" The younger brother was upset.
"Generals have their own principles." The elder brother marched all the year round and knew how to check trauma. "This arrow wound is not serious, just bandage it to stop the bleeding. This poison—" He couldn't help looking at Shen Zhaozhao.
"Go get the antidote." She decided.
If Zhang He wanted to kill his brother, it would be easy, and he would not be allowed to come back alive. What's more, even if you want to kill, you can choose to kill with a sword or poison, no matter which one is enough to kill Shen Ce. Both, it can only mean that the subordinates set up a bureau, and they have to avoid Zhang He.
Before the person who wanted the antidote left the military camp, Zhang He had already sent someone to deliver it.
Before Shen Ce went to the banquet, Zhang He was afraid that his subordinates would do tricks and he had tested the poison himself. It was non-toxic back then.
After all, Zhang He is Shen Ce's direct-related senior brother, and he is very thoughtful. After Shen Ce left, he was still worried. He personally ate Shen Ce's food, drank from his cup, and tried the poison with his own body.
"Our general said that he has already taken the antidote. If he still can't solve it, he will count on his life." The person who delivered the medicine said.
Her eyes were not easy to use, so she had to ask her maid to feed her brother the antidote. After feeding, she asked everyone to leave the account.
Inside the big tent, there was only the sound of dripping copper pots.
She was afraid that the antidote would be useless, so she leaned in and listened to her brother's breathing to determine whether he was relieved.
Shen Ce opened his eyes, thinking that it was the days and nights after each injury in the past, and he wanted to get up.
Stop for a moment.
Because of the smell of tea in her hair, Zhaozhao, when she was a child, was washed by her mother with tea soaked in water. Her hair was black, and there was often a light tea fragrance. When he first arrived at Chaisang, he had no money to buy tea for her, so he waited for his aunt's family to make tea, and then took the tea away. The adults thought he was craving for tea, and sometimes when he was in a good mood, they would grab a handful of new leaves for him. Shen Ce told Zhaozhao not to say that it was for shampooing his hair, lest others not give it. After a long time, his cousins would laugh at him. Zhaozhao would have red eyes when he heard it, but he would not dare to tell the truth.
He didn't take it seriously, and teased her with a big reason, saying that Han Xin had the humiliation of the crotch, and then a general arrived in the three armies, and Goujian tried his hardest, and then returned to the country. Zhaozhao seemed to understand but did not understand, and learned tongues, Shen Ce asked for tea, and then he became king.
...
"What are you listening to?"
She tried hard to see his appearance, which was no different from when she was a child. A pair of beautiful eyes circulated around him, unable to catch him, unwilling, annoyed, and lost. Now these emotions are gone, it's just grievances, after all, at the age of thirteen, no matter how sensible, smart, and different from ordinary people, they are still young: "I thought you were going to die..."
"Your brother's life is tough. It's easy to live, but it takes a lot of work to die."
He stretched his arms and sat up directly.
The strategist made a hexagram, saying that unless he seeks death, others will not take his life.
"In your heart, senior brother is more important than me. In order to protect senior brother's reputation, you are unwilling to find a military doctor. But have you ever thought about it, if you are about to die, your senior brother will not accompany you to die, only I will accompany you."
"Yes," he said, "in the world, only Zhaozhao will accompany me."
Zhaozhao said it well, he did not let his voice be heard, just to protect the reputation of his senior brother Zhang He. The events of last night are going to be spread out, and the world will judge: Shen Ceyi Bo Yuntian went to the banquet, Zhang He treachery and ambush.
Zhang He was stigmatized and forced to leave the North, how could he make his senior brother misunderstood again.
It is dawn, and the drums of war will rise.
Someone called: General, the formation has been set up.
Shen Ce agreed and asked Zhaozhao to use the clothes to kill the enemy. He likes to wear dark colors on weekdays, but prefers to wear white in battle.
When the two armies confront each other, the usual coach will sit firmly under the banner, and the morale of the army will be suppressed.
Shen Ce didn't follow common sense. Whenever the two armies were at a stalemate, he would bring the red gold to break the city and shoot into the battle. He had to dye his white clothes red before giving up. Over time, the enemy army will be afraid to fight against the Shen family army, because no one knows when that gun that is heavier than a chariot will kill you and take away the head.
Shen Ce knew that his face was pale, and his face was still unhealed, so Zhaozhao got the tiger-faced helmet.
"Do you know why I have to go west?" he asked.
She shook her head. People in Wuling County said that Shen Ce had great ambitions and wanted to take over the world. But she thinks it's more than that.
"They once sent a letter of war saying that there are no strong soldiers in the river, and they will drink horses in the Yangtze River within three years, and throw a whip to cut off the flow. As in the past, when they entered the Central Plains, men were killed, and women and children were fed as military food." He put the silver tiger Putting on the helmet, only a pair of eyes appeared on the tiger's face, so black that there was no reflection of her, "I don't have to wait for three years, I want them to give me a thousand miles of territory today. Since they want to drink the horses in the Yangtze River, I will let them go. In the plains, let the horses in the south of the Yangtze River taste the wild grass here."
In that battle, Zhang He was killed by Zhao Ye's sword, and the enemy was defeated.
Shen Cezhen, as he said before the war, after the war, untied all the tens of thousands of war horses and let them go to the plains.
Amidst the loud noise of thousands of horses trampling on the weeds, she turned her head to look at him who was admiring the horses. From those eyes, she saw the sky, the clouds, and the thousands of troops and horses on the green grass... The maid Yuanxi had never seen this before. Waiting for the scene, Bai Riwang looked at the grassland for three hours and refused to return.
It was night, the generals celebrated, and he was not in the barracks.
Zhaozhao asked people where he was, but no one knew. He found the stables, and the horse breeder asked her to find Shen Ce on the hillside where the horses were released during the day. On the grassy slope in the middle of the night, he sat there alone, the blood-stained white clothes were thrown into the bonfire of celebration and burned to the ground, and changed into black clothes.
"The strategist said that someone has already joined you to send the body of the enemy general to the north." She was worried about him.
He summoned the horse: "Get on the horse."
In the sound of the wind, he rode his horse and took her to a higher place, to the place where the grass was thickest. When the horse ran recklessly, Zhaozhao's waist tightened, and he rolled over and rolled off the horse. The cavalry had practiced dismounting to avoid the enemy like this, and he was so proficient that he protected her with his body.
The two lay on the grass, her heartbeat was faster than ever, and she wanted to say, brother, you still have an injury on your waist.
Looking up is the night sky, surrounded by war horses eating grass. The grass rubbed against her arms and calf. Shen Ce hugged her, with her forehead pressed against the blade of grass beside her, and she said nothing for a long time: "Zhang He... The reason he is stigmatized is because of his high morals."
He said: "Zhi Jie, the world often does not allow it. It is not a bad thing for someone to play me."
She didn't answer. That's not what he wanted to say, he was sad, he didn't want to be reasonable.
She tilted her head to look at him, but Shen Ce pressed her head on his shoulder, preventing her from seeing herself close at hand. She breathed slightly, her body sensing the ups and downs of his emotions: "If you are sad, stop talking."
He was laughing, laughing that he was seen through by her: "Zhao Zhao," he asked softly, "do you know what my brother did today?"
She was so bored that she didn't bother him.
"I..." Tears rolled down his face, like the blood from last night, seeping into the soil, "Kill my brother."
"He was worthy of all his life. He tested the poison for me last night and sent me the antidote," he said, closing his eyes tightly, "today he died under the sword of Zhaoye, at the hands of his younger brother..."
He couldn't say any more, he pressed his chin on Zhao Zhao's shoulder in pain, hugged her in pain, and tried his best.
Shen Ce was poisoned and injured last night, and all the tears she could hold back poured out: "Brother, don't be a general, let's go this time, okay?"