Tibet.

Chapter 1372 The only way
As soon as Li Ye returned to the palace, Guo Ziyi hurried over.

Guo Ziyi bowed and presented a quick report, "Your Majesty, this is the latest news from Suiye that I just received."

Li Yejie passed the quick report and waved his hand, saying, "My dear Guo, please take a seat!"

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

Guo Ziyi sat down aside, and Li Ye opened the express. There were only a few sentences in it, and it should be an eagle letter.

'Suiye was attacked by an unknown army, and the garrison suffered heavy casualties and was forced to evacuate!'

Li Ye nodded. This report from the Privy Council brought a glimmer of hope. The garrison was forced to withdraw, which meant that there were still survivors. It was very likely that Guo Xin was not dead. Generally speaking, as long as the entire army was not destroyed, the main general would survive.

"Your Majesty, I am willing to lead the army to the west to realize your majesty's great cause!"

Li Ye smiled and said, "I am very touched that Lord Guo has this intention, but establishing a complete and efficient military system is more challenging. I hope Lord Guo can help me accomplish this great cause!"

Guo Ziyi is old, and Li Ye can no longer let him go to the Western Regions, especially those snowy plateaus with an altitude of five or six thousand meters, which will be fatal to Guo Ziyi. He can no longer let Guo Ziyi go.

Guo Ziyi sighed in his heart and stopped insisting. He then stood up and left.

Li Ye came to the window with his hands behind his back, looking at the gloomy sky in the west. His thoughts were already thousands of miles away.

In Anxi, Lingshan was hit by blizzards in October. The roads were blocked by heavy snow, and horses and carts could no longer pass. Only camels had a chance to cross Lingshan when the weather was clear.

In December, a team of 300 people arrived at the foot of Lingshan Mountain. The leading general was Li Chenghua, the commander-in-chief of the Internal Guard. She led 300 elite soldiers of the Internal Guard to go to Suiye for investigation. After more than two months of long journey, Li Chenghua's team finally arrived at Lingshan Mountain.

The team was composed entirely of strong camels. In addition to the tall camels they rode, there were thousands of camels carrying food and supplies.

Li Chenghua looked at the towering snow-capped mountains in front of her. Although she had climbed Lingshan several times, they were all in summer. This was her first time in winter.

Li Chenghua turned around and shouted, "Please ask the guide to come over!"

The guide was a local who specialized in leading people across Lingshan Mountain and could speak fluent Chinese. Soon, the guide came up on a camel.

Li Chenghua pointed his whip at the snowy mountain and asked, "How can we get over it?"

The guide pointed to the col above and said, "Spend the night in the col above, and set out when the sun comes out tomorrow. Try to climb over the main peak before dark."

"Can't we camp at the foot of the mountain?"

"no!"

The guide rejected the idea outright, saying, "It takes exactly one day to climb over the main peak. If we spend the night at the foot of the mountain, it will be dark halfway up the main peak. If we spend the night on the main peak, both humans and animals will freeze into popsicles."

"We have leather tents with us, so we can make a fire to keep warm!"

The guide shook his head. "The camels will freeze to death. The temperature on the main peak during the day is already the limit of what humans can bear. The temperature drops sharply at night. No one has ever survived crossing the main peak at night."

Li Chenghua nodded, "Then follow the guide's instructions!"

The team reached the middle of the mountain, where there was a large valley, which was just in the leeward side. At night, the temperature here was better than that at the top of the mountain. The key was that the camels could bear it, and the people naturally had to hide in the tent. At this time, it was getting dark, and everyone hurried to unload the goods, set up the tent, and dig a fire pit. Burning wood and charcoal in the tent was easy to cause poisoning, so they usually burned dry cow dung to keep warm, which was not easy to cause poisoning. This was the experience of thousands of years.

Thousands of camels lay huddled together against the cliff, relying on each other's body temperature for warmth.

As night fell, the temperature dropped sharply. Outside the tent, the wind and snow howled. A dozen soldiers were huddled in a tent. Everyone was silent. They wrapped their bodies in thick blankets, drank hot milk tea, and ate greasy meat patties.

Milk tea was bubbling in the hot pot on the stove. The fire was burning very brightly, and the curling cow dung smoke had a grassy fragrance, keeping the tent a little warm.

The next morning, when the first rays of morning glow shone on the snow-capped mountains, the mountains became golden and dazzling. The temperature on the top of the mountain began to rise. The team quickly packed up their luggage and continued on their journey.

The team did not dare to rest. The camels stretched out their long legs and trudged through the snow that was one meter deep. They walked for a whole day and did not dare to stop to rest. At dusk, they crossed the mountain pass and began to go down the mountain.

The guide yelled, "It's going to get colder. Speed ​​up, everyone! Go!"

Even the camels felt the crisis. They all sped up and finally reached a safe place when night fell. It was a leeward col halfway up a mountain. The temperature there was slightly higher than at the top of the mountain, so the camels could bear it.

The team hid in a leeward place for one night and set out again the next morning. They had completely descended the mountain before dark. It would still take another five or six days to reach Suiye.

The team continued to move towards Suiye.

There is a newly built military city on the east coast of Yibo Sea, called Yibo City. It was built less than five years ago and usually has only a hundred or so soldiers stationed there, but now it is crowded with six or seven hundred people.

The nearly 600 extra soldiers were the Tang army that retreated from Suiye, led by Hezhong Governor Guo Xin. Suiye was attacked by 20,000 troops of the Holy Maiden Society in the middle of the night, and there were 500 enemy soldiers disguised as merchants in the city to cooperate from inside and outside.

The 2,000 defenders in the city suffered heavy casualties. Nine hundred Tang soldiers broke out in three groups. One group retreated westward to Julan City, one group went to Gongyue City along the Yili River Valley, and the main force was 600 people led by Guo Xin, who retreated to Yibo City.

It is winter now, with heavy snow covering the area. The army is now facing the biggest crisis. There is not enough food for the winter. The food reserves in Yi Bo City are not enough to support 700 people, and the food supply is about to be cut off.

A dozen generals sat in front of the campfire to discuss countermeasures. Some suggested hunting to see if they could encounter deer in winter, and some suggested fishing by digging holes in the thick ice of the Yi Bo Sea to fish, but such small-scale operations were meaningless.

A general said, "Commander-in-chief, I heard that Lingshan can be crossed in winter. Why don't we cross Lingshan and retreat to Anxi?"

Another general objected, "We can cross Lingshan Mountain in winter, but we need camels to ride over it. War horses cannot withstand the severe cold at night in the mountains and will freeze to death. In addition, the snow on the road is very thick and the horses cannot pass through it."

At this time, Guo Xin coughed lightly, and everyone stopped arguing and looked at him together.

Guo Xin slowly said to everyone: "There is only one way at the moment, that is to ask for help. We have twenty camels, and we can send twenty soldiers to Anxi to ask for help. It will take about a month to go back and forth. We also have more than a hundred war horses, and we can kill them, and then hunt and fish as supplements. We should be able to hold out for a month."

Everyone thought it made sense. Other methods were futile and the only way was to ask for help.

The next morning, the young scout captain Yuchi Xi'an set off with 19 soldiers. Yuchi Xi'an was the son of Yuchi Guang, the governor of Beiting, and a descendant of Yuchi Gong, a famous founding general. The young man was only 20 years old, but had been in the army for five years and had been promoted to scout captain. He was very smart and experienced.

They rode twenty camels towards the Suiye Valley, which was also covered with three-foot-deep snow, so they would not encounter the enemy. But the same might not be true in Rehe, because Rehe was not frozen and there was not much snow around, so it was easy to encounter enemy patrols. But there was no other way but to be as careful as possible.

The camel caravan of twenty people set off. Everyone stood on the city wall and watched them go away. The lives and hopes of seven hundred people depended on them.

(End of this chapter)