Tibet.

Chapter 1350: Scattering Soldiers to Lure the Enemy
The next morning, as soon as Li Chenghua arrived at the government office, her subordinates hurried over and handed her a piece of information.

"General, this is General Wang Qian sending a pigeon message from Lanzhou. They have conducted a preliminary interrogation in Jincheng."

Jincheng County is the birthplace of Li Ye's career and the location of the old Neiwei government office. The Neiwei still has more than a thousand people in Jincheng, responsible for monitoring the Helong area.

Wang Qian conducted the first interrogation in Jincheng and obtained some important information.

Of course, Kongsberg would not reveal any in-depth information, such as information related to the Holy Maiden Society, which he would never tell.

But the information involving the trafficking of child girls was superficial, and he confessed everything in order to save his life.

Li Chenghua unfolded the pigeon letter and read it, then ordered, "Quickly call General Zhou!"

Soon, Tiger Guards Lieutenant General Zhou Xiao hurried over, bowed and said, "Greetings, Commander-in-Chief!"

Li Chenghua handed him the pigeon letter, "This is a pigeon letter sent by Wang Qian from Jincheng. It contains the list of three people from Changan. Lead your men to arrest them immediately!"

"I humbly obey my orders!"

A quarter of an hour later, thousands of internal security soldiers divided into three groups and headed straight for Yanshoufang, Xinfeng County and Xianyang County. These were the three human traffickers involved in the trafficking of child girls in Chang'an, who were also Kang Shibai's suppliers. Of course, there were also some in Luoyang. Now the main focus was on arresting the three human traffickers in Chang'an, and the first to bear the brunt was Liu Guiqing from Yanshoufang.

Liu Guiqing was still feeding the parrot in the corridor. He evacuated the remaining 300-odd young ladies under his command to the countryside, and they avoided the interrogation in various counties the night before. He was quite proud of his foresight.

"master!"

The butler came running over, his face full of fear, saying: "There are hundreds of internal guards outside, they are rushing in!"

"what!"

Liu Guiqing stood there motionless, as if he had fallen into an abyss.

"over there!"

Dozens of internal security soldiers rushed over from both sides of the corridor. Liu Guiqing's legs went limp and he fell to the ground, shaking all over, unable to utter a word.

Liu Guiqing was tied up and taken away by the internal security soldiers, followed by his two sons and several grandsons. His wife and two concubines, who also participated in disciplining the girls, were all arrested.

The internal security began an emergency interrogation. In order to save his life, Liu Guiqing made a series of confessions, exposing and revealing all the human traffickers he had a cooperative relationship with.

Liu Guiqing was actually a middleman who took the girls from the upstream human traffickers, trained them, taught them music and dance, and then handed them over to the downstream Sogdians, such as Kang Shibo.

For three consecutive days, the Internal Guards conducted a large-scale manhunt in Jingzhao Prefecture and even in Guanzhong, arresting more than one hundred human traffickers and rescuing more than one thousand girls and boys who were hidden by them.

Liu Guiqing trafficked thousands of girls over a period of 20 years, a heinous crime. Although he reported a large number of human traffickers, it was not enough to atone for his sins. Emperor Li Ye issued an order to execute Liu Guiqing's entire family, leaving only one grandson who was exiled to Lingnan. The rest of the more than 300 human traffickers, including the Luoyang prisoners, were also beheaded.

This severe crackdown on human traffickers finally curbed the trend of trafficking in child girls that had lasted for more than 20 years. When the news spread, human traffickers from all over the world were frightened and hid everywhere, changing their names one after another. However, once they were caught by the government, they could not escape death.

Although the human trafficking incident has come to an end, some deeper inside stories have just been revealed, such as the Holy Maiden Society, the backstage behind the trafficking of Tang Dynasty girls, which has gradually surfaced.

In Liaodong, Guo Ziyi led an army of 100,000 into the Bohai Kingdom and marched straight to the old capital of the Bohai Kingdom, Shangjing.

At this time, Guo Ziyi had already contacted the naval commander Li Chengshi and learned that Li Chengshi had destroyed all the Japanese warships and annihilated more than 14,000 enemies, cutting off the Japanese army's escape route by water.

Guo Ziyi was overjoyed. He immediately deduced that the Japanese troops in Shangjing were less than 40,000, and it would be best to lure them out to fight.

Ren Tianling was very familiar with the terrain. He pointed at the map and said, "To the west of Shangjing City is the former grassland of the Bohai royal family. The grassland is more than ten miles in radius and is surrounded by forests. It is very suitable for fighting. Moreover, Shangjing City is not a completely closed city at present. The imperial palace is being expanded and the several-mile-long city wall has been demolished. The army can directly charge into the city."

Guo Ziyi originally wanted to ask why their 60,000-strong army did not fight back to avenge their families, but instead surrendered to the Khitan. The apparent reason was that they had run out of food, but they still had horses, cattle and other livestock in their barracks, which they could kill for dry food and return to Shangjing in a few days.

In fact, Guo Ziyi vaguely guessed that the officers and soldiers of the Bohai Navy were still frightened by the Japanese army and did not dare to come back to avenge their families.

Guo Ziyi smiled and said to General Xi Wanli, "Let's use the old method and use a small number of troops to lure out the Japanese army." Xi Wanli immediately understood and said, "I will lead 20,000 cavalry to ambush in the forests on both sides."

Guo Ziyi nodded, "Send 5,000 heavy-armored infantry into battle!"

Guo Ziyi looked back at Ren Tianling and said calmly, "I estimate that there will be several thousand Japanese troops in the city. Let General Ren deal with them."

Ren Tianling nodded, "I will use their hearts and livers to sacrifice to my deceased relatives!"

Early in the morning, the Japanese commander Fujiwara no Umeharu received news that a 5,000-strong Tang infantry force was discovered ten miles outside the west city.

With no way to retreat, Fujiwara no Umeharu immediately ordered to leave 3,000 men to guard the city, and he personally led an army of 35,000 to attack outside the west city and annihilate the 5,000-man Tang army.

The Japanese army also bullies the weak and fears the strong. They only dared to attack when the enemy had only 5,000 people. If the enemy had an army of 50,000, they would not dare to do so.

The 35,000 Japanese troops consisted of 10,000 cavalry and 20,000 samurai, with an additional 5,000 cavalry attendants.

The main weapons of the cavalry were the heavy rattan bow and the short spear. The short spear was not their own weapon, but a weapon captured from the Bohai treasury and equipped to the cavalry.

In the past few months, the Japanese army has been training cavalry to fight with short spears, and the effect is remarkable, especially using cavalry to charge with short spears, which has extremely strong lethality. After dispersing the enemy infantry, the samurai group can then charge and chop off the enemy's heads with swords.

On the vast grassland, 35,000 Japanese troops have been lined up. In front of them are 10,000 cavalrymen, wearing black rattan armor, holding short spears, with bows and arrows on their backs, and riding on ponies.

The 10,000 cavalrymen were in neat formation, and the 20,000 warriors behind them were also wearing rattan armor and bamboo hats. Each of them had two swords on his waist, and they were full of murderous intent.
Finally, there were 5,000 cavalry attendants who also joined the battle. They had no armor, wore linen clothes, held a short spear in their hands, had a short sword on their waists, and were barefoot. They looked very simple.

It’s not that there is no leather armor and leather boots in the Shangjing warehouse, but their status does not allow them to wear armor and shoes.

Although there were a large number of people, each soldier was very short, almost about 1.5 meters tall, and looked like eight or nine-year-old schoolboys, but there was a devilish gleam in everyone's eyes.

The heavy armored infantry were completely the opposite. Each of them was over 1.9 meters tall, and the main commander Xu Zongran was over 2 meters tall.

Xu Zongran was the Black Spear, who was granted the titles of Duke of Bian, General of the Champion, and Grand Master of the Imperial Court. He was originally granted the title of General of the Left Guard and was ready to retire, but for this Liaodong expedition, he made repeated requests and was finally approved to be renamed General Commander-in-Chief and follow Guo Ziyi into the war.

Xu Zongran looked at the enemy's ponies, sneered in his heart, turned around and shouted: "Although the enemy is small, they are all murderous demons. Don't underestimate the enemy, kill them all without mercy!"

The five thousand heavily armored infantrymen stood in awe, gripping their sword handles tightly. Xu Zongran shouted again: "Skirmisher style!"

A flag soldier held up a blue flag high and waved it vigorously.

There are many formations for heavy armored infantry, and they are not all the same, advancing like a wall. Different formations will be used according to different enemy forces and situations.

For example, the wall troop style is to advance like a wall, and another example is the split troop style, which is to be divided into several small formations, with 500 people in a group, and fight separately.

There is also the circular formation, which is to arrange soldiers in the shape of a barrel. This formation is often used when surrounded by a large number of enemy troops.

The current skirmish formation means that the large formation is loosely separated, which means that each soldier fights separately, but the basics will not change. No matter how the heavy armored infantry formation changes, five people will always be the most basic combat unit.

Five thousand heavily armored infantry quickly expanded and spread out, with five soldiers in a group and each group about two meters apart. This allowed the enemy cavalry and infantry to infiltrate, just like a huge fishing net. Once they got in, there was no way they could escape.

Therefore, the skirmisher style is also called the net soldier style.

"Woo——"

The Japanese army blew the horn, and the commander Fujiwara Umeji swung his sword, "Destroy all the enemy forces!"

Ten thousand cavalrymen suddenly rushed out and attacked the Tang army in an overwhelming manner. Twenty thousand warriors charged with swords raised. There was no formation, but they formed their own formations and rushed towards the Tang army shouting and yelling.

(End of this chapter)