Daigo Ada rode on his horse and watched the Han people slowly riding from the camp towards Tiemen Pass.

I saw the man wearing a felt suit, with a low brim pressed down and unable to see his appearance clearly, but his figure was a bit thin. He should be like the legendary one, a weak man who could only hold a pen but could not lift a knife.

"It's him? Wu Zongnian, deputy envoy of Fu Jiezi, who was captured by the scout of the Youxian King a year ago."

The Puyin King, who was responsible for attacking the Iron Gate, smiled and said, "Yes, this person has been surrendered to the Youxian King for almost a year. He has dressed up his braids and married Hu's wife. Hu Yu has also become more and more comfortable. He also assisted the Youxian King in keeping a secret and doing things to teach people and animals. In addition to being unable to drink horse milk wine, he is also obedient."

Daigo Ada shook his head: "The Han people are cunning. It's only one year. I don't believe that he has completely surrendered to the Right King and forgot his days in the Han area. Didn't Zhang Qian and Zhao Ponu surrender first and then escape? It's so difficult to tame it, unless, like King Jiankun, he was killed by the emperor of Chang'an, and lost his way out."

King Puyin had his own idea: "Would Wu Zongnian really surrender to the strong Hu? Today is a good time to try it! He also cut off his retreat. When he came, the Youxian King said, "I want me to keep an eye on this person. My bow will aim at his back later. If he dares to talk nonsense or escape, he will shoot him with an arrow!"

The Huns were watching the fun, but as the person involved, Wu Zongnian only felt that the short two-mile road leading to Tiemen Pass was really long.

Looking back more than twenty years ago, Wu Zongnian was only fifteen or sixteen years old, and was still a young scholar with no hair on his lips in Qiancheng County, Qidi. When he heard that Li Ling surrendered to Hu, he was filled with righteous indignation. He talked loudly in front of his commander and scolded Li Ling.

"As a minister, he ignored his kindness and righteousness, and the Lord of the Cong was against his relatives, and he surrendered to the barbarians. Li Ling's actions were no different from the Central Leadership's statement!"

Among the scholars of the same school, there were people who sympathized with Li Ling like Shi Gong, who asked Wu Zongnian: "What if you were Li Ling?"

Wu Zongnian said righteously at that time: "I am humiliated by the law and humiliation of my destiny. Even if I live, I will return to the Han Dynasty? I will only serve the country if I die!"

At that time, the young Wu Zongnian would never have thought that one day he would really face such a choice.

Just a year ago, he was ordered by Fu Jiezi to take Loulan King Angui's head to Yumen to report good news and ask for support. However, he encountered a large number of Xiongnu cavalry in Julucang. In order to allow Xi Chongguo to successfully pass the news back to Yumen, Wu Zongnian has always performed mediocrely and has bad riding skills and became a hero!

On that day, Wu Zongnian held up the flag and asked his subordinates to spread the Han flag to lead most of the Xi Chongguo and other three people.

That was the most enjoyable moment in Wu Zongnian's life, but unfortunately, he soon fell to a low point.

The six cavalry who followed him as bait were chased and shot and killed by dozens of Huns, but Wu Zongnian was thrown off his horse. Seeing that he was a Han envoy who was a polite Han, the Huns left his life and took him back to Pu Liehai and sent him to the court of Youxian.

Along the way, Wu Zongnian, who became a prisoner, recalled his bold statement many years ago and wanted to seize the blade several times, but he never found a chance.

When camping at night, Lao Wu wanted to hit and die on the cliff, but at the last moment he was instinctive and restrained his strength. Although his head was bleeding, he still had his life. He was scolded by a doctor Hu and wiped herbs and miraculously healed.

He found in despair that when the incident came, the survival was so strong that he had no courage to commit suicide, so he could only hold the scepter silently, hoping that even if he did not die, he could still maintain his scepter like Zhang Qian and Su Wu.

Not being afraid of death is a short impulse, while greed for life is the norm of life.

Everything is because I still have luck in my heart: "Maybe I will have the chance to return to the Han Dynasty like Bo Wanghou and Su Ziqing in the future."

But things are not as simple as he imagined.

When Wu Zongnian was taken to the Youxian King Court on the Balikun Prairie, the younger brother of the Xiongnu Shanyu, Xulu Quanqu, was quite interested in the Han envoy and asked him if he would surrender.

Wu Zongnian was righteous and righteous at that time: "Confucius said that if one is ashamed of oneself, he will not humiliate the king's orders in all directions. He can be called a scholar, and I will not surrender!"

"Aren't you afraid of death?"

Of course I am afraid, but Wu Zongnian insisted: "Minist serves the king, just as the son serves the father. If the son dies for his father, he will have no hatred!"

Then Wu Zongnian scolded the Huns. He did not have the courage to commit suicide. It would be a good thing if the Huns could kill him with one knife.

But after hearing the translation of the Han people who surrendered in the early years in the king's court, King Youxian was not angry, but instead laughed: "Okay, then you can be a starving taxi."

So Wu Zongnian was locked up in an empty cellar, with no food or water to drink.

Wu Zongnian remembered that during the court, Chang Hui, the Guanglu doctor, told them about Su Wu's experience in the Huns. He was also in a large cellar, lying in a chewing snow, swallowing it with felt hair to satisfy his hunger. He did not die for a few days, and then he survived.

But there are soil around, and there are sunny days outside, so where does the snow come from?

The Youxian King obviously did not want Wu Zongnian to die of thirst and starvation. Two days later, he brought him some food and drink.

"As long as you surrender to the Right Xian King, you can go out."

Wu Zongnian was still very tough: "A gentleman does not eat food that comes from pity, and a patriot does not drink water from the stolen spring!"

He had to urinate for a few days, but in the end he couldn't sprinkle anything, and the feeling of hunger was even more fucked. In the big cellar where he didn't know the sun and the moon, Wu Zongnian was so hungry that his eyes turned black and thirsty that he fainted. Finally, he even had green eyes and looked at the end of the scepter, and the dry blood of King Loulan was particularly there.

He had reached the point where he couldn't help but stretch out his dry tongue to lick the blood and stuff the yak tail on the scepter into his mouth.

His stomach was so hungry that he felt bleeding, and finally lost consciousness. His heart had returned to Chang'an, but his body was curled up in the Rongdi Hu dust.

In a trance, Wu Zongnian dreamed that the Han Heavenly Warriors had killed the Youxian King's Court and swept the Huns. Then Fu Jiezi, Xi Chongguo and others pried open the cellar gate and saved themselves, praised his perseverance and bravery, and handed over sweet water.

But when Wu Zongnian opened his eyes and had already drunk most of the water, he realized that in front of him was the Han people sent by the Right Xianwang to persuade him to surrender.

I guess they heard the loud noise in his stomach, and they sneered: "Deputy Envoy Wu, you have drunk the thief of the spring. Isn't this food that comes to pity? Isn't it not to eat?"

The fragrant roasted lamb was held in front of him, and the color was so golden that it emitted heat after just roasting.

"This is the reward from the Youxian King. He slaughtered the best sheep and roasted it slowly on the fire. Such good meat is not something that even the commanders of the hundreds of horsemen can eat every day. But the Youxian King Aicai, heard that you fainted from hunger, so he asked us to bring some."

Wu Zongnian had only the lamb leg left in his eyes. He reached out to grab it out of instinct, but they took back the food.

"Submit, or not?"

Wu Zongnian remembered the bold words he said in his hometown many years ago.

I remembered the solar terms of Bowanghou and Su Wu, and the wife and children in Chang'an, and countless voices were dissuading him!

I would rather die than surrender!

But he couldn't control his hands and mouth.

"drop……"

His voice was weak at the time, but he was relieved of all the hardships.

"I surrender!"

The lamb legs were thrown in front of him, and Wu Zongnian rushed up like crazy and sucked the hot oily water.

Confucius said Chengren, Meng said to be righteous, but they could not make their empty stomach full, nor could they moisten their dry throat.

At this moment, those things that Wu Zongnian once believed in and committed to, were not as comfortable as a bite of mutton.

After recovering his strength, he realized that the scepter he had always held in his hand had long been taken away by the Huns when he fainted. I don’t know if it was burned as firewood or thrown away.

After leaving the cellar, Wu Zongnian realized that he had been running intermittently for seven days.

"It's only been seven days..."

"And Su Ziqing has been withstood for 19 years, more than 7,000 days and nights."

"It turns out that being Zigong is easy, but it's so difficult to become Su Wu's second!"

Looking at the sunshine above his head, he felt like he was a different world, kneeling on the green grass powerlessly, Wu Zongnian seemed to have lost his soul and wanted to cry without tears.

"So, I'm not an iron-clad hero."

"Just a mortal who is afraid of death, pain, and hunger!"

...

The steps stopped and the memories stopped.

Wu Zongnian discovered that he had reached about two hundred steps west of Tiemen Pass. The Huns were urging him next to him, so he had to get off his horse, take off his felt hat, take off his Hu clothes, revealing the deep clothes he was wearing inside, which was to show his identity.

He was forced by King Puyin to come and persuade Tiemen Pass to surrender.

Although Tiemen Pass is also built with rammed earth, it is different from all the city barriers that Wu Zongnian saw. There are three specifications of Han army passes: the small one is a dock, the middle one is a barrier, and the big one is a city.

Those with a side length of no more than 500 steps are obstacles, such as Yumen Pass and Yang Pass in Dunhuang, which are all obstacles. However, their specifications are simple, just a tall square rammed earth wall surrounded by a circle and a female wall was built on the wall.

But the iron gate is different. The height is about the same as that of the Yumen gate, which is more than four meters high and has a length of more than one hundred steps, sealing the iron gate pass. However, there are two rectangular piers on the city wall to the west, extending from the wall like a horse.

As for the situation inside the pass, I couldn't see it at Wu Zongnian's location. I heard the Huns who had climbed up to the top of the city but were driven down and luckily died, and it was a bit strange.

A hundred steps outside the city wall, there were several deep ravines and trenches, which were now filled with sand and soil by the Huns. However, all attacks hit walls in front of the iron gate, wooden ladders, shields and even corpses, scattered outside the pass in a mess. These were the wreckage of several failed attacks.

If it weren't for this, there was no need to let Wu Zongnian come to persuade him to surrender. After more than 40 days of siege, King Puyin and King Yiwu had lost more than a hundred people. I heard that the loss on King Rizhu on the east side was even greater, and there were only more than ten people who died in the battle at Tiemen Pass.

But Tiemen Pass also has a fatal weakness. It was just a barrier, but nearly 300 people were guarding it. After more than 40 days, the cooking had been cut off and the firewood was gone. A few days ago, I started to use dry manure and clothes to ignite the beacon fire to maintain communication in the same Qulicheng.

“The people inside the barrier are starving.”

Wu Zongnian walked forward carefully, recalling the hunger that made him bend his knees and bow his head to surrender to the right wise king. He knew how that feeling tortures a person's body and destroys his spirit.

Will the guards at Tiemen Pass choose to surrender like themselves?

With Wu Zongnian's loud shout, a man appeared at the top of the Ironmen Pass, covered in heavy armor and holding a large crossbow.

He is an acquaintance. He parted ways with Wu Zongnian a year ago in Julucang. He carried his life and returned to the Yumen alone.

Wu Zongnian recognized him, and his voice was hoarse for a moment: "Xi Qi Li, it is me, your former deputy envoy, Wu Zongnian!"

He began to recite the well-written words of persuasion to surrender loudly, and his words were still very good.

"The captain Lai Dan has been attacked by Kucha, died and the city was broken, and there was no help in the west. Loulan Ruoqiang was timid and did not send any troops. The Han soldiers were also blocked by King Youguli, and they did not reach the Tiemen for more than a month. All the officials in the court had abandoned the Western Regions."

"The food inside the barrier is empty, the arrows and crossbows are gone, and tens of thousands of troops of the Right King are about to arrive. If you don't surrender at this time, you may all become powder!"

"Zong Nian had previously been defeated by the Han Dynasty and returned to the Xiongnu. Fortunately, he was blessed by the Right King, and was given the title of official position. He had dozens of slaves and hundreds of horses and animals, and was so rich. You surrender today and will come back tomorrow. Why do you have to use your body to riddle the desert and grass? Who knows it again? Why not turn against you and remove your armor and use courtesy..."

The sound was interrupted, and it was Xi Chong's crossbow machine pronounced. A thick crossbow arrow was nailed several steps ahead of Wu Zongguo, and the tail feathers trembled slightly. This is the answer from Tiemenguan.

"I just surrendered the treacherous slander, and pretended to be the deputy envoy of Wu to deceive us."

The voice of Xi Chongguo was still so determined.

"The Wu Zongnian I knew was a hero who was kind and righteous, loyal to the emperor and respected courtesy, took Zigong as an example, and honored integrity as glory. A year ago, he had already lived in Lucang, and in order to lead the barbarians away for us, he donated his life and sacrificed his country!"

"I can still tell the difference between swans and sparrows. You are not Wu Zongnian!"
To be continued...