C3396 Ice-treading and sleepless snow (1/2)

In the Qing Dynasty, there was another nickname for the pagoda city, appeased city!

This name was given by General A'Gui, one of the subordinates of the dryad Emperor. The city was not big, but it was strong enough to swallow three thousand people.

When Yaqub was at his most arrogant during his rebellion, a large amount of bandits and civilians were also instigated to revolt here. The city was initially destroyed, but five years later, as the situation in the northern border stabilized, the city gradually began to be restored and expanded.

In the end, the Northern Frontier was still a religious place. It was not like the Southern Wilderness, where they had a monopoly!

In this chaos, the north was the trump card that the Qing Government had always been controlling. Although there were also riots in the pars dorsalis, the nomadic peoples in the north was a natural ally of the Manchu.

Kazakh, Mongolian and other nomadic tribes all believed in Shamanism and Tibetan Buddhism, they were definitely not the same as the people of the Southern Wilderness. It was very wise for the current General Yili Rong Quan to stay in the Northern Frontier Tower to test his courage.

There was a huge gap between the northern border and the Ivu River Valley. The remaining veins of the Heavenly Mountain were located on the other side of the mountain, and currently, it was also the gathering of the snow-covered mountain. The information between the north and the south was completely cut off, and General Rong Quan did not even know what was happening in the Ivu River Valley.

He only recruited soldiers year after year, and trained them day after day. He gathered food and military supplies as he waited patiently for Zuo Zongtang's army to arrive.

It was his duty to hold on, and he had nowhere to retreat to. If he lost his base in the northern border, the Great Qing would have nowhere to go, and taking back Xinjiang would be his dream.

But whether or not he could defend the northern border, Rong Quan himself did not know either!

Ever since the first snowfall of the northern border, Rong Quan had a bad feeling about this. He would often stand at the top of the city walls by himself and look in the direction of the southern Ivu River Valley, often standing for an hour straight.

Anyone who came from the south, including the caravan and the migrating herdsmen, would be questioned personally by him. He would carefully gather every single piece of information in the Ivu River Valley.

”I heard that Russian's forces have increased to 40,000 … How could forty thousand cavalrymen not be worthy of fifty thousand warhorses? ”How much does it take for humans to feed their horses …”

”There's definitely going to be something going on this winter. Russian doesn't need that much food at all …”

”What happened? What happened …?” How good it would be to have a foreign telegram! ”

Telegrams were something new in the Great Qing. Although the Chinese Telegraph Company had successfully laid the telegraph line from Shanghai to Beijing, they still had to wait a long time to spread it all the way to Xinjiang!

What General Rong Quan did not know was that right now, in the cold sky above the Borokonu Mountain, a carrier pigeon that was trying its best to lose weight was flying towards its hometown.

A carrier pigeon was truly a magical creature. They would always remember the place where they were born, their home, and those who needed a carrier pigeon to send a message, as long as they released the carrier pigeon from a faraway village, they could rely on their instincts to fly back to their hometown.

Black Dots were the messenger pigeons that the Uncle Hu San and the rest had raised. They had hatched in the pagoda city's pigeon camp since young and had been brought to the Ivu River Valley by a caravan for five years.

He had left his hometown for five years, but he didn't erase the pigeon's natural spirituality. He still remembered the way home!

The wind blew and the snow fell. The carrier pigeon flew through the valleys of the Tianshan Mountains. Whenever it was a cold night, he would hide in the cracks of the rocks and rely on his feathers to resist.

He waited until the blizzard lessened before flapping his wings and soaring into the sky to carefully avoid the sharp gaze of the birds of prey.

Thanks to the good food and drink that had fed him for five years, it was only then that the black dot was able to survive the snowstorm in the Heavenly Mountain winter night. Finally, he was able to see the familiar Zenger Basin.

The pagoda city gradually appeared in the eyes of the black dot. The feeling of returning home was so intimate and exciting. He continued to flap his wings, and the fluttering carrier pigeons circled in the night before landing in the pigeon camp.

Gugugu … Gugu …

A stranger had broken into the camp, and the pigeons who did not recognize the black spots were clearly a little xenophobic. They began to cackle and protest against the stranger's stealing of food.