Tibet.

Chapter 1457: The Fall of the Tanguts
The fire under the city was still burning, and the main force of the Dangxiang army had retreated three miles away. The last fire was extremely tragic, killing nearly 10,000 Dangxiang soldiers, forcing Tuoba Chaoguang to order a withdrawal.

In the two sieges yesterday and today, more than 20,000 Dangxiang soldiers were killed, especially in today's siege, where 16,000 people were directly killed. Tuoba Chaoguang also gave it his all and attacked the city regardless of casualties. In the end, he lost almost half of his troops, but still failed to take Lingwu City.

This made Tuoba Chaoguang fall into despair. In the afternoon, he received even more desperate news: more than 200,000 people and millions of sheep left on the grassland were missing, and the 3,000 guards were all killed.

This news not only made Tuoba Chaoguang despair, but also made him panic. He ordered the news to be blocked and the soldiers must not be allowed to know that their families were missing.

At dusk, a group of cavalry came galloping from the south. The leader was led into the tent and saluted, saying, "Khan, a Tang army appeared in Mingsha County. Our leader asks Khan for help!"

Tuoba Chaoguang was shocked. "How many people are there?"

"About 20,000 people!"

This should be the reinforcements from Hexi arriving.

"I understand. I will send reinforcements as soon as possible!"

Tuoba Chaoguang calculated in his mind that he had less than 30,000 troops. Excluding 4,000 to 5,000 wounded soldiers, there were only about 23,000 soldiers able to fight. Tuoba Chaoguang sighed in his heart. They had been preparing for ten whole years, but it was still useless.

The Dangxiang people in Qingzhou had to be rescued, so Tuoba Chaoguang immediately ordered his eldest son Tuoba Yuan to lead 13,000 troops to Mingsha County for support, while he himself led 10,000 troops to continue to focus on Lingwu County.

In fact, it was Li Sheng's 50,000 main Tang troops that arrived. Of course, 10,000 reinforcements from Hexi also arrived, led by Pei Xiu, the governor of Liangzhou.

In order to completely annihilate the enemy, Li Sheng made careful deployment. He handed over 10,000 troops to Pei Xiu, and asked Pei Xiu to lead 20,000 troops to attack Mingsha County in the name of Hexi Army.

Li Sheng also sent General Ren Tianliang to lead 10,000 troops to detour to the north to cut off the Dangxiang army's route to the north.

He personally led 30,000 troops to wait in the north of Mingsha County and set up a large trap.

It takes two days to get from Lingwu County to Mingsha County, which is about four hundred miles apart.

At the first watch of the next morning, Tuoba Yuan led more than 13,000 Dangxiang soldiers and rushed south. After all, Yuanzhou and Qingzhou were not grasslands, and they did not have so many war horses. The Dangxiang in Qingzhou had more than 6,000 war horses, while the Dangxiang in Yuanzhou were better, with more than 10,000 horses.

The 13,000 men led by Tuoba Yuan were all infantry. They ran in the dark and gradually opened up a distance of three miles.

In fact, this is a big taboo during a march, especially at night. Once the march is ambushed, defeat is inevitable.

Although Tuoba Yuan often trained soldiers, he had never been in actual combat, let alone read any military books, and he had no marching experience at all.

The so-called experience is actually the accumulation of various lessons learned through blood. Every failure makes you wiser. With more lessons, you will gain experience.

Unfortunately, the Dangxiang people only have lessons but no experience.

While they were running, there was a sudden sound of clappers. Countless Tang soldiers suddenly appeared on the sand in the east, raising their crossbows to shoot at the Dangxiang soldiers who were running on the official road. Thousands of arrows were fired at once, and the running Dangxiang soldiers were caught off guard. A large number of soldiers were shot down by the arrows, and there were screams in agony.

Immediately afterwards, there were loud explosions in front and on the official road, flames shot up into the sky, thick smoke filled the air, and then a raging fire broke out in front again, screams and cries were heard everywhere, and the Dangxiang soldiers were in chaos.

The Dangxiang soldiers in the middle lay down to avoid the arrows, while the Dangxiang soldiers at both ends scrambled to escape from the official road.

After the 10,000 Tang army infantrymen finished firing their crossbows, they immediately hid in the trenches that had been dug in advance. Behind them came the deafening sound of cavalry horses' hooves.

Two groups of 10,000 Tang cavalrymen attacked from the northwest and southeast at the same time and killed into the enemy crowd, stabbing with spears and slashing with swords. Heads and mutilated corpses were everywhere, and the thick blood gathered together and flowed into a stream.

The Dangxiang soldiers were killed so hard that they cried out in agony, with no way to go up to heaven or down to earth. They knelt on the ground and begged for mercy, but were still chopped off their heads by the Tang cavalry.

The main general Tuoba Yuan died in the first wave. He was injured and fell off his horse, and was burned to charcoal by the raging fire on the official road.

At three o'clock in the morning, 13,000 Dangxiang soldiers were killed. The Tang army had no time to clean up the battlefield and immediately divided its troops into two groups. General Guo Xi led 10,000 infantry to Mingsha County to assist in the battle, while Li Sheng led 20,000 cavalry north to Lingwu County.

Li Sheng had already received intelligence that there were not many Dangxiang people left in Lingwu County, only more than 10,000 people, and his 20,000 cavalry were enough to annihilate the enemy.

The two sides went their separate ways, and Guo Xi led 10,000 infantrymen towards Mingsha County.

Guo Xi was the third son of Guo Ziyi. He had fought with his father for many years and had also made numerous contributions. After Guo Ziyi became the Privy Councilor, Guo Xi was named the General of the Left Cavalry Guard. This time, he served as Li Sheng's deputy general to suppress the Tangut rebellion. The place where the Tang army annihilated the Yuanzhou Tangut army was only about fifty miles away from Mingsha County. Before dawn, Guo Xi led 10,000 infantrymen to Mingsha County, but the scene in front of them stunned the Tang army soldiers. They saw that Mingsha County was on fire, and thick black smoke filled the entire county. The fire in the smoke was like a devil's head sticking out, constantly flashing a hideous crimson color. The Tang army soldiers were still constantly using small catapults to throw kerosene and oleander powder bags into the city.

When Guo Xi saw Pei Xiu, he quickly bowed and asked, "Excuse me, Commander Pei, have the Tangut troops been completely wiped out?"

“It’s all in there!”

Pei Xiu looked at the county town and smiled. "At the beginning, we were preparing to attack the city, but the catapults threw oil balls into the city, which caused a fire. We simply set the city on fire. When they broke out, we shot them to death with arrows. Look, there are corpses everywhere at the city gate!"

The city gate was open, and there was thick smoke and flames inside. The gate was filled with corpses, like small hills.

"almost!"

Pei Xiu waved his hand and ordered: "Stop adding kerosene!"

The kerosene was no longer added, but the flames in the city were still raging. Even though there were open spaces in the middle that were not burning, they were still filled with thick smoke, and there was no air to breathe.

"Are there any enemy soldiers around?" Guo Xi asked.

Pei Xiu shook his head. "We defeated the 5,000 cavalrymen of the Tanguts. The remaining troops retreated back to the city. General Dong's troops were watching them. The Tanguts did not flee and were all inside the city. Perhaps they found out that we did not carry any siege weapons, so they wanted to rely on the county town to fight us."

Pei Xiu smiled and asked, "How was the ambush?"

Guo Xi smiled slightly and said, "The enemy reinforcements only had more than 10,000 people. They were ambushed by our 30,000 people and were easily killed. General Li led 20,000 cavalry to the north, and I heard that there were only more than 10,000 people over there."

Pei Xiu sighed, "It's a pity that we arrived a step too late. Mingsha County was massacred by them, and none of the more than 5,000 people survived."

Guo Xi gritted his teeth and said, "Let them pay for their blood debt with blood!"

Tuoba Chaoguang spent two days in fear. Their food supply was originally very tight, but as a result, nearly half of their troops were killed in the siege. Now their food supply was abundant again, enough to support them for half a month.

In the past two days, the wounded soldiers have been wailing and dying. Nearly 5,000 of them were basically hit by poisoned iron balls. The poison is extremely strong. If there is no antidote, they will die of whole body festering in a few days. It is very miserable.

Tuoba Chaoguang had no choice but to order the bodies of the dead soldiers to be piled together and burned.

Although there was no shortage of food for the time being, Tuoba Chaoguang's inner fear was deepening. He knew that more than 200,000 civilians could not have disappeared out of thin air and must have been captured by the Tang army, not to mention the 3,000 guards who had been killed.

He still hid this news from the soldiers, but the problem was, what good would it do to hide it from the soldiers? Would he be able to save the people? Sooner or later, they would know.

What should he do now? Tuoba Chaoguang wanted to surrender to the Tang army, but Tuoba Qimei cut off his retreat, and they would die if they surrendered.

After much thought, he had no choice but to go to the grassland and seek refuge with the Uighurs.

At this moment, there was a rapid alarm bell outside, "Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!"

Tuoba Chaoguang was horrified and ran out of the tent. Several people ran over and shouted, "Khan, the Tang cavalry has entered the camp!"

Tuoba Chaoguang was shocked. "Where did the Tang army come from?"

His soldiers were seen fleeing in all directions, and in the distance the Tang cavalry rushed into the camp like a tide. Tuoba Chaoguang fled to the north without saying a word, helped onto his horse by dozens of his personal soldiers.

Tuoba Chaoguang led more than a thousand personal soldiers to break through and escape, but the army left behind by Tuoba Chaoguang was not so lucky. They were killed by 20,000 Tang soldiers, and the ground was covered with corpses and the sand was stained with blood. Nearly nine thousand people were killed, and no one escaped.

Heaven had destined the Dangxiang to be destroyed. Tuoba Chaoguang led more than a thousand personal soldiers and fled less than a hundred miles when they encountered 10,000 cavalrymen led by General Ren Tianliang. Receiving the order from the commander-in-chief, Ren Tianliang led his troops south to intercept them. He happened to encounter more than a thousand cavalrymen fleeing north and immediately surrounded them.

Tuoba Chaoguang led the cavalry to break out desperately, but could not escape the encirclement of the Tang army. Seeing that his men were getting fewer and fewer, Tuoba Chaoguang was in despair. He sighed and had to draw his sword to commit suicide.

The two Tangut rebel forces in Wonju and Gyeongju were completely wiped out.

(End of this chapter)