Traveling through the early Tang Dynasty starts with hanging

The army was defeated like a mountain.

The front and back roads were cut off, and on both sides were the Tang army's formations with densely packed chariots, and the Tiele cavalry who had been killed and dispersed could only flee to the south.

But not far to the south is the Weishui River, and there is no place to escape if you want to.

After piercing through the enemy's army, Su Dingfang led more than a thousand cavalry to the west to beware of reinforcements from the Hu cavalry. Generals such as Yu Chigong, Wang Junhao, Liu Rengui and other generals led the cavalry to pursue them all the way and drove large groups of Tiele cavalry down the Wei River.

Tang Qi unleashed waves of arrows unscrupulously, turning the Wei River red.

The massacre was staged on the banks of the Weishui River. Naturally, the Turks would not come to help, but Yi Nan, the leader of Xueyantuo, whose eyes were breathing fire, came in person with his troops.

But it was too late.

Su Dingfang led more than a thousand cavalry to form a formation relying on the left army. It was impossible for Yi Nan to rashly attack the infantry formation that could rain arrows at any time. Even Yi Nan was a little untenable.

Because after the defeat of the Tiele cavalry, the Turkic forces in the center and right chose to withdraw their troops. Liu Hei'er had already led more than a thousand cavalry from behind and stayed on the flank of the battlefield where the Tang army was chasing the Tiele cavalry, forming a quarrel with Su Dingfang. .

The sullen Yi Nan had no choice but to retreat. Indeed, he still had tens of thousands of troops in his hands, but he could not waste them casually. Even Yuchi Gong, who was rising over there, led his troops to pursue him and bit hundreds of Tiele cavalry. , and also killed several generals.

At this time, it was almost dusk, and the setting sun shed golden light in the sky like blood, but it could not make the Jinghe River and Weishui River appear golden, and some only had a rich blood color.

Today's war has finally come to an end.

At the Central Military Department, Li Shan seemed calm and composed, but he also breathed a long sigh of relief. Ma Zhou and Su Xu were both wiping the sweat from their foreheads.

In this battle, although the Tang army had a favorable geographical location, it had too few troops after all. With 20,000 Tang troops facing off against 70,000 Hu cavalry, although the enemy could not swarm them in one fell swoop or encircle them on a large scale, the gap in strength between the two sides was still too great.

Under such circumstances, Li Shan still resorted to this dangerous strategy to hide his troops, so that the defense line was crumbling, and the Turks almost broke through the Chinese army, and finally destroyed thousands of Tiele's cavalry.

Su Xu was dazzled by what he saw. He had been in the Chinese military tent these days. He knew very well that the His Highness in front of him was not good at military affairs, but he was extremely talented in strategy... He used defeating the enemy in several battles as bait. , forcefully led the enemy's main force into the narrow strip between Wugong County and Liquan County. Today, they achieved their goal with cumbersome arrangements and decisive courage.

In fact, Li Shan himself called it a fluke. He tried his best to delay the time to wait for reinforcements, and also deliberately lured the main force of the Hu cavalry here so that they could not go directly eastward to Chang'an.

But I didn't expect that before the war started, apart from some surrender troops and prisoners from the Tianjie Army transferred by Li Yuan and Li Shimin, there were only hundreds of cavalry led by Hu Yan.

Moreover, Hu Yan and his cavalry did not participate in the battle today... They only arrived in Chang'an early this morning. They were exhausted and exhausted.

What Li Shan fears most now is that the reinforcements may not arrive in time, and may even be defeated by Hu Qi one by one, forcing him to take risks.

Li Shan knew very well that talking in front of the battle and trying to divide Tujue and Xue Yantuo by just talking was nonsense.

The only way to divide them is because of interests.

Tiele has nominally surrendered to the Turks, but Yi Nan has the ambition to establish a country and replace the Turks. Although this time he joined forces with Dubu Khan to go south, Yi Nan is wary of the great military power that has been demonstrated in recent years. Tang Dynasty, but at the same time he was also wary of Turks.

After all, Dubu Khan's march south had strong political implications, but Xue Yantuo was different... Yi Nan seemed to be forced to send troops, but in fact he came to fight the autumn wind. He had no intention of destroying the Tang Dynasty and taking over the Central Plains. His ambitions were limited to the grasslands. Therefore, when the Tang army bit Tiele's cavalry, although Yi Nan was filled with hatred, he had to consider practical issues... His own loss was a real loss.

This is the interest, the capital of Yi Nan's struggle with the Turks, and the hope of Yi Nan's founding of the country.

Li Shan's idea is very simple. Even if most of the tens of thousands of cavalry under his command are killed in the battle, Dubu Khan can still make a comeback as long as he returns to the grassland. The Turks have been traversing the grassland for more than a hundred years and control too many tribes, let alone Dubu. The Khan also left tens of thousands of cavalry in Lingzhou.

But Yi Nan probably couldn't bear the heavy losses. Although Li Shan didn't know the current population of the Xue Yantuo tribe, the losses in this battle must have made Yi Nan heartbroken.

Only in this way can Xue Yantuo and the Turks be separated, and only in this way can Yi Nan intend to retreat.

Even if he doesn't retreat immediately, Xue Yantuo will not send any more force to avoid greater losses... Li Shan believes that today's right wing is just to entangle the Turks, and the left wing is to attack Tiele. Yi Nan should have thought clearly.

The setting sun was slowly setting over the mountains, and both sides withdrew their troops back to camp in a tacit agreement. Li Shan turned back and looked in the distance, wondering what choice Yi Nan would make.

At this moment, Yi Nan was indeed heartbroken. There was almost no loss in the capture of Liangzhou. Only the Tang army was defeated in Lanzhou. The main Turks took action. The Tiele cavalry only knocked on the corners and suffered no losses.

But after entering the pass, the four thousand cavalry were almost wiped out at dusk yesterday, and even one of the leaders, Tu Mifen, was killed. Today, more than three thousand tribesmen were killed... plus the previous deaths, the number was already close to ten thousand.

The tribe that Yi Nan can directly control only has a population of tens of thousands, and the total number of troops in battle is only 50,000 or 60,000. This time he led 40,000 cavalry southward and lost nearly a quarter of them just two days after entering the pass. How can this not be done? Make Yi Nan heartbroken?

I originally thought that the Tang army would stare at the Turks and attack fiercely. Unexpectedly, on the contrary, the Tang army focused on themselves and tried their best to tear off strips of flesh from themselves... Yi Nan was also thinking about this issue while being furious. He still had Is it necessary to continue with Dub Khan?

There are already horsemen outside Chang'an City. Although they are only two or three, they come and go like the wind, so most of the gates of Chang'an City are closed, especially the Golden Light Gate of the West Gate.

In the Li residence in Yanshou Square, Mrs. Zhu and Mrs. Zhang were chatting with Cui Shiniang. After more than six months of pregnancy, Cui Shiniang was no longer able to move easily.

On the day Li Shan rushed to the Tang Army's camp according to the imperial edict, the Li family had temporarily moved into Chang'an City. Some people from Sun Moon Lake also entered Chang'an City and were arranged in Li's house and temple, while the rest went to Dongshan Temple.

There was a cough outside, and then Cui Xincai and Zhu Wei came in together, both with smiles on their faces.

"Don't worry." Zhu Wei said with a smile: "The battle started today. The Tang army won a small victory and beheaded more than five thousand people."

"This is already the third victory in three days." Cui Xin also said with a smile: "In addition to Huo Guogong, many generals who stayed in Chang'an joined the army to participate in the battle. Huairen was in charge of the central army and did not take risks lightly. .”

"That's good, that's good." Mrs. Zhang breathed a long sigh of relief.

Seeing that Mr. Zhu was still a little nervous, Zhu Wei nodded and said: "Alang sent his personal guards back to Chang'an. I asked about it just now and there was no damage."

Zhu was relieved. She was worried not only about her son, but also about a biological brother and a cousin.

After chatting for a while, Zhu Wei and Cui Xin went out. After going out, their faces quickly darkened.

After dusk, Li Shan sent his personal guards back to Chang'an. In this battle, more than 5,000 people were beheaded, but his own losses were not small. There were nearly 4,000 casualties. The ratio between us and the enemy was almost one to one.

However, Turks and Xue Yantuo suffered heavy losses, but Li Shan, who only had 20,000 troops in his hands, could not afford to lose... At this rate, Li Shan could not withstand three days.

Of course, Cui Xin and Zhu Wei didn't expect it, but Li Yuan and Li Shimin did. Li Shan also wrote the plan clearly and clearly in his letter.