Chapter 171: A surprise attack on the Tubo army

A Tang army of about 300 cavalry was surrounding two carriages and heading towards the snowy mountain. Behind them was a long team of mules and horses. This was a team that had made an appointment with the horse bandits to exchange hostages for money and goods. The carriage was naturally Li Fei Shouyu and his son. Li Fei Shouyu sat in the carriage. The carriage was bumpy. He leaned against the wall of the carriage and looked at the undulating distant mountains through the car window. The sharpness in his eyes disappeared, but he felt more bleak. He had walked this road many times, and he knew that the stone and wood on the road were all clear, but at this time he felt extremely strange, as if it was an endless night road, and he could not see the future or the light, but he knew clearly that the future must be a cliff. He was a little tired, tired of killing and robbing, but they had no way out and no choice. Sooner or later, they would fall into the abyss under the cliff.

Yesterday, the words of the governor of Shazhou were like a torch. In the endless night, he saw a trace of light and also smelled a trace of hope, "Submit to the court and let the past be done," Li Fei Shouyu shook his head ridiculedly. How could a verbal promise from a young governor be able to offset the blood debts they had in their hands? This ray of light is so weak and unreliable.

The convoy was approaching Daxue Mountain. Li Fei Shouyu sat straight and looked at the valley east of Daxue Mountain. His eyes began to become hot. He saw that the small tree on the huge rock at the entrance of the valley was gone. In other words, the eldest brother had made all preparations. Li Fei Shouyu couldn't help laughing. He was laughing at the clumsy plan of the new governor of Shazhou. He actually wanted to break the city wall to lure him over. Last time he was hit by his own trick to lure his tiger away from the mountain, but he escaped by luck. This time, let him taste what it means to have both wealth and wealth. If he wanted to take the opportunity to take his nest, let him go. Once he left, Shazhou would be empty, and he would take his nest back.

The convoy had entered the area of ​​Daxue Mountain and reached an empty place. A horse rushed over from the opposite side. The horseman waved his hands and shouted loudly: "My leader has an order, so I will exchange it here. Please send someone to negotiate."

Less than half an hour after the Tang army that was going to exchange, another Tang army quietly winded southeast along the Ganquan water. There was no sound of war drums, no flags, and no passionate oaths. In the scorching sun, it was like a black torrent, and the iron-green armor shone in the sun. This was a Tang army of three thousand people. Their target was the horse bandit nest in Qingyang Mountain, but the speed of the march was not fast, and it seemed that they were waiting for something?

Li Qing on the horse's back had a serious look, his lips were stretched into a straight line, and his expression was extremely serious. His casual smile disappeared on his face at this moment. He looked at the endless Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, thousands of miles away from the wild land, and there was no one inhabited. But in his eyes, it seemed that behind the snow peak with blue and purple light, a huge Tubo cavalry was coming towards Shazhou.

A trace of worry flashed in Li Qing's eyes. Before dawn, he received an emergency report from the scouts. The scout team may have found traces of the Tubo army, but they did not see anyone. In terms of the number of horses, there may be about a hundred people. It may be scouts. If it was a Tubo scout, it means that the Tubo army was about to appear. However, the walls of Dunhuang County have not been completely repaired, so how can they resist it? What's more, there are a group of horse bandits who are eyeing each other, and internal and external troubles seem to erupt at the same moment.

"Yangming, I don't think it must be a Tubo scout, or a border vestor. After all, it's the Tubo territory."

Deputy General Li Siye saw Li Qing's worries and urged him to comfort him immediately. Li Siye was on the border for a long time and knew the rules of Tubo. He smiled and said, "If it were a scout, there would inevitably be a Tubo brigade later. Most of the Tubo bandits chose autumn when the autumn was high and the horses were fat and the rice was ripe. But now it was midsummer, and I don't think it's possible."

Li Qing also smiled bitterly and said, "Don't I hope this is the case, otherwise the bandits here have not yet been sanctioned and the enemy has arrived there. With only a few thousand of us, how can we fight on both sides?"

Li Siye smiled heartily, "A mere horse bandit, a mob, why should Yangming take it to heart? Besides, you still have more than a thousand people in Shazhou? Don't worry, as for the unknown enemy, Xiang Xuan has already gone to support him. Whether there is a Tubo army will have an answer soon."

"Yes! With Zhang Xun and 1,200 Doulu Juns here, and with veteran Tian Zhen, what else can I worry about?"

Thinking of this, Li Qing thrust his waist, cheered up, and his usual self-confidence was restored to his face. He turned around and laughed loudly at the soldiers: "We have the invincible Modao Army, the archery team with excellent archery skills, and the invincible iron cavalry. Our Tang army has never feared any enemy!"

"What the governor said is that we have never lost a battle!" dozens of veterans responded confidently and excitedly.

A war horse galloped past the team, shouting all the way, and the voice gradually faded away, "Everyone keeps in formation and don't fall behind."

Compared with the vast and flat landform of Daxue Mountain, the Ganquan River has undulating mountains and ravines along the coast, and large areas of dense forests are invisible to see at a glance, which is very easy to hide and hide. If the Tubo army sneaks into Shazhou, it will often follow this secret passage.

After walking for another half an hour, I crossed a steep cliff. Here, Ganquan water fell from the cliff, forming a waterfall of ten feet high. The sound shook the sky and came three miles away. The white mist in the air was filled with white water, and the trees on both sides were extremely lush and green. The Tang army carefully climbed a slope, and the horses were so well-behaved that they passed through this waterfall. After passing the waterfall, the team began to enter the Tubo territory. There was no legal document in the two countries in this territory, but they just used the relatively dangerous terrain as a natural dividing line. Of course, the ambitions of the Tubo people will never have any dividing line.

After walking fifty miles forward, the sun had gradually reached the sky. The valley was extremely hot, as if it was in a steamer. The river water had become smooth and smooth here. Li Qing turned around and called the scout sent by Duan Xiushi to report the news. He pointed at the horse whip and said, "Is your lieutenant breaking up with you here?"

The scout who reported the news carefully looked at the surrounding environment, pointed to the pile of horse manure next to the big stone and said, "Return to the governor's question, is it here?"

"Not bad! You don't make conclusions easily. You must give up when you see talents. You are a qualified scout."

Li Qing also used a wooden stick to pluck the pile of horse manure, nodded, turned around and said to Bai Xiaode: "What is the name of this scout captain? You can reuse him in the future."

Bai Xiaode smiled and said, "This man came to join the army as a Jinshi. Gao Dacheng also valued it very much. He thought he was too scholarly and ordered him to go to the strokes. But he was also very successful. He only accumulated merits and was promoted to the lieutenant in just two years. It was reasonable for Governor Li to fall in love with him. This man's surname is Duan Xiushi and his name is from Jingzhao."

"Duan Xiushi!"

Li Qing was shocked again. He had heard of this person since he was a child, but he didn't expect that he would appear under his nose and was still a small captain. Although he was shocked, his cunning gradually became deeper after many twists and turns. He only smiled faintly and said, "I only said that he is a qualified captain. As for what background he is and how excellent he is, I will talk about it when I see it myself."

As soon as he finished speaking, a personal soldier suddenly pointed to the other side of the river and shouted anxiously: "Governor, look, there is something happening there!"

When Li Qing heard the sound, he saw more than a hundred small black dots appearing in the distance, and were rushing towards him quickly, "Come with me!" Bai Xiaode waved his hand and led hundreds of cavalry to wading across the river. The dense horse's hooves splashed large splashes of water and quickly met him.

After a moment, the black dot approached, but there were more than one hundred cavalrymen. The leader seemed to be Xiang Xuan, the commander of Guoyi, who was going to pick him up. He was surrounded by more than a dozen injured Tang soldiers among them. Bai Xiaode came forward and asked a few questions, and immediately brought them back.

"No! There must be Tubo army, and there will be no missing one." Li Qing's eyes gradually narrowed, and he guessed the seriousness of the matter from Bai Xiaode's slightly panicked expression.

The cavalry rushed back quickly, Bai Xiaode urged the horse to Li Qing, took a breath, calmed down, and whispered: "I did find the Tubo cavalry, about 2,000 people, but there was no commander's flag, so I guess it was just a front army."

Li Qing nodded silently. Things had come and could not hide. At this time, more than a dozen injured scouts were brought over. Xiang Xuan, the governor who had been to pick him up, came forward to report, "Report to the governor, we found them twenty miles away, and did not find Tubo pursuers behind him."

"Thank you for your hard work!"

Li Qing praised them a few words and rushed to see Duan Xiushi's situation. He was hit by two consecutive swords on his back, and his thick armor was split open, and the blood stained the battle robe inside. The fifty of them were first attacked by Tubo scouts, and then surrounded by two thousand Tubo front troops. In the end, only twelve of them rushed out, all of them were injured. Duan Xiushi struggled to maintain a little mentality. When he saw the Tang army coming to pick him up, he could no longer hold on and fainted after explaining the situation.

"Hurry and send them back to Shazhou and tell the military doctor that if Duan Xiushi's life cannot be saved, I will want his head!"

After Li Qing gave the order, he turned around and asked Li Siye to discuss the matter. Li Siye sighed and said silently for a moment: "If the Tubo army had two thousand people, then there would be at least eight thousand enemies this time, and we only had three thousand people. This is indeed a serious test! Yangming, let's let the horse bandits go for now! Let's talk about this disaster before you."

After hesitating for a moment, he said again: "But this is in the territory of Tubo. If a fierce battle breaks out, Tubo will find excuses. He said that our Tang Dynasty will provoke first, and the court may cause trouble for us."

This is indeed a problem. If the battle starts in Tubo, it will become an invasion of the Tang Dynasty. The Tang Dynasty will be passive in politics, and Li Linfu will not let him go. But if he retreats to Shazhou, it will not affect morale. What is fatal is that the city wall is far from being repaired. How can he resist the locust-like Tubo army? Thinking of this, Li Qing was secretly annoyed. He would have known that the city wall would not be demolished, but how could he expect the Tubo army to attack in midsummer?

Suddenly, a thought flashed through his mind: Tubo came to attack Shazhou. If he could not resist, Shazhou was in danger, would the court transfer Anxi, Hexi army or even Longyou army to support it? Will the Tubo attack Shazhou be just a temptation, the purpose is to disrupt the imperial court's military strength and material deployment, and even to attack the west with a reputation."

The more he thought about it, the more likely it was. It was meaningless to attack Shazhou for 8,000 people, and the number of troops invested in a battle of Tubo was at least 50,000 to 100,000. It can be seen that its main target was definitely not Shazhou.

Li Qing immediately said decisively: "You cannot retreat to Shazhou, you must intercept the Tubo army here, and I will bear all the consequences and responsibilities!"

He looked at the vast dense forests and rolling mountains in the distance, and seemed to hear the sound of horse hooves rumbling, and thought to himself: "The two thousand vanguards, I wonder if they would know that there is a Tang army with 3,000 people here?" Li Qing shook his head, "It should be that he didn't know that as long as the arrangement is properly, it may not be impossible to defeat the more."

Huangfu Weiming was the governor of Longyou of the Tang Dynasty and the governor of Hexi, but he was stationed in Shanzhou of Longyou. In order to shift Huangfu Weiming's strategic focus to Hexi, Tubo Zanpu Chide Zuzan carefully planned a dangerous move and attacked Shazhou. This was a plan he had arranged since the beginning of the year. Through the Qiang people who were pro-Tubo in Shazhou, he also discovered the strangeness of the Doulu army in Shazhou, and the troops were significantly reduced. Although he did not know the reason, he keenly felt that this must be related to Huangfu Weiming. If he took Shazhou and led to a temporary replacement of the Tang Dynasty, his Longyou plan would be half successful.

In early July, two months before he was about to start attacking Longyou of the Tang Dynasty, the sneak attack in Shazhou quietly began. Tubo sent a total of 8,000 soldiers, and the main general was the famous general Tie Ren Sinuoluo. Among them, two thousand front troops were light cavalry, led by Tubo's emerging general Lu Qizang.

Chitshu was about thirty years old. Like other Tubo people, the strong ultraviolet rays on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau burned his skin roughly. He was not tall, but he was extremely strong, with wide shoulders and thick back. His strong chain mail draped over his body turned into a cube.

A close fight in the early morning eliminated a scout team of the Tang army, but after all, more than a dozen were escaped, and these scouts and responded people made him hesitate. The originally seamless sneak attack plan actually had a loophole. What was going on?

Unfortunately, there were no prisoners of the Tang army, otherwise there would be clues.

The Tang army escaped the net and meant that their plan was exposed. This was an extremely dilemma. The huge risks and huge benefits were present. The crying was hidden for a moment and he couldn't make up his mind. He found a square stone and sat cross-legged. This was his habit when he encountered difficulties. He casually used mud blocks to outline the distance on the big stone. From then on, he went to Shazhou about 120 miles. It was afternoon. If a scout went back to report the message with the fastest horse speed, the Tang army brigade would not arrive tomorrow morning as soon as possible. Moreover, Zanpu said that the Tang army in Shazhou was less than 2,000, and even if there were soldiers outside, he would rush back to defend the city. This is common sense for soldiers. Everyone knows that defending the city is more advantageous than field battles.

Chizang wiped the possibility of ambush with his hands. He stood up and looked up at the sky. The sun was already westward. If he seized the time, he would be able to arrive in Shazhou tonight and catch Tang Jun off guard.

Two thousand Tubo light cavalry quickly formed a team under the loud command of the singular crying, and then shot towards the northwest like a straight long arrow.

After running twenty miles in one breath, the climate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau changed rapidly. It was just a scorching sun, and it was already covered with clouds. Low clouds were surging and flying above my head. The clouds in the distance were surging violently, and a storm was gradually approaching.

Two thousand Tubo cavalry galloped like arrows, crossing one high and one low hill after another, passing through dense dense forests, with soft and thick grass mats under their feet, and the Ganquan River Valley was conveniently located in front of them. According to scout reports, you can go directly to Dunhuang County along the Ganquan water.

The sky was covered with dark clouds, and it was pitch black in the distance. Mountains were swallowed up by black clouds, as if some demon was about to descend on earth.

It was still afternoon, but night had arrived early above the Ganquan Water. The valley was gloomy, but the Tubo army seemed to be invisible to all this. The long horse legs were running forward, moving forward! Move forward! The sound of horse hooves, which were like heavy rain, beating on the empty river beach, like a group of hungry wolves rushing towards the target in the distance.

But no one noticed the abnormality. The water level of Ganquan water seemed to be in the dry season, but now it is the midsummer with abundant rainfall. After about a few miles of running, the scouts leading the way in front discovered the abnormality and shouted in shock: "General, this water level is much shallower than last night, there is a problem!"

The face of the crying and cried turned pale. Suddenly, he realized the enemy's vicious plan. Without waiting for his order, the earth sounded muffled thunder like a flat ground, and then a low sound of wild beasts. A black line under the gloomy dark clouds was clearly visible a hundred steps away, and a strange bright color was reflected slightly.

The river roared and roared, and the dark black waves stirred up were more than two feet high. Before the Tubo army could react, the river swallowed hundreds of cavalry in one mouthful. They were panicked, fearful, and their souls were scattered. The remaining thousand cavalry shouted wildly, trampled on each other, and fled to the shore like a mountain collapse and cracked the ground. The river bank was high and slippery, and the war horses were blocked, and they could not leap up with all their might. Seeing the critical situation, they whipped hard on the horse's buttocks and continued to run forward, wanting to race against the flood.

But at this moment, a shocking shout erupted from the dense forests on both sides of the river bank. Hundreds of Tang soldiers rushed out suddenly, holding Fuyuan crossbow in their hands. At the command of an officer, dense arrows roared over the sky. Hundreds of cavalry who rushed ashore were shot and fell back into the river one after another. The crying and cried, and the people and horses were tied into porcupines, and they fell heavily to the ground. The surging flood rushed past him, and there was no figure in the blink of an eye.

Another sound of shouting and killing came with the strong wind. A thousand Tang cavalry lying a mile upstream finally arrived, attacking with long spears and flying across the horizontal sword. In the end, the remaining more than 300 Tubo troops had no intention of fighting anymore and fled one after another.

Several war horses slowly appeared on the hills in the distance, and a flash of lightning streaked over their heads, tearing open the deep dark curtains, instantly reflecting the earth into bright white. On the middle of the war horse, Li Qingzheng, the chief general of the Tang army, stared at the battlefield in the valley with cold eyes. This was a battle on one side. The power of nature and the powerful crossbow of the Anxi Army annihilated the two thousand Tubo front troops. In the end, there were only more than a hundred remaining soldiers [escape from the sky to death and disappeared into the night during the day.

"No one of the wounded soldiers will be left, and they will be killed and thrown into the river."

This was Li Qing's last order. After saying that, he raised his head and stared at the distance. The storm had turned and went east. The thick ink sky gradually began to thin, turning gray and black, blowing with the wind. The snow mountains that had once trembled in the black clouds showed a sapphire-like light. At the foot of the snow mountain, another larger Tubo main force was surging here.

Li Qing's face became extremely serious. In that battle, he would have no chance to use the Tang Dynasty sword to defend the honor of the Tang army.
Chapter completed!