Now that all the remaining ministers in the court are the Western Xia monarchs, Li Deming got up and shouted: "When will this king no longer suffer humiliation." His Royal Highness's ministers confessed one after another: "The lord is worried about the humiliation of the ministers, and the lord humiliates the ministers to death." Li Deming suddenly calmed down and exhorted the ministers below. Li Deming and the ministers already knew that the situation in Western Xia was not optimistic, and they had to find countermeasures. Li Deming felt that it was time to hurry up and formulate a strategy for westward expansion, and he was ready to start a war against the Great Song Dynasty within two years. Most of the ministers were opposed, and only the crown prince Li Yuanhao and Yeli Qiyu and Yeli Wangrong father and son agreed.

At this time, there was an urgent military situation, Li Deming opened the emergency report to take a look, and suddenly fell into the dust, the guards hurriedly moved forward to help him up, the prince Li Yuanhao picked up the emergency report and looked at it, and he was also shocked, he knew why his father was panicking, it turned out that Huili was occupied by the Great Song Dynasty. Li Yuanhao knew that he couldn't hide it at this time, so he first handed it over to Yeli and his son to watch, and then handed it over to the ministers of the palace to circulate. No one has spoken in the hall, the ministers know the seriousness of losing Huili City, after Huili is occupied by the Great Song Dynasty, the southwest gate of Xingqing Mansion is opened, there is no danger to defend, the Great Song Dynasty will grasp the initiative, the strategic defensive significance of Hengshan has been lost, the Great Song Dynasty can directly attack Xingqing Mansion from the Hui Barber Army, the Western Xia will fall into great passivity, and also lose the strategic foothold of the westward expansion, and even have the disaster of destroying the country, the most important task at present is to send troops to recapture Huili.

On this matter, the monarchs and ministers of Western Xia had the same opinion, united as one, and hated the same enemy. Li Deming ordered the crown prince Li Yuanhao to lead the troops to recapture Huili, Li Yuanhao took the order to go, he took Yeli Wangrong as the main general, and led 50,000 troops to attack Huili. At this time, Huili had been occupied by the Song army for seven days, and the 20,000 reinforcements led by Li Zhaoliang and Guo Zun had arrived in Huili City, and the Song army in Huili had reached nearly 30,000. Yang Wenguang already knew about the transfer of the Western Xia army, and knew that there would be a fierce battle within two days.

Yang Wenguang and Li Zhaoliang and Guo Zun studied the war situation on a sand table, the production of this sand table was taught to Yang Wenguang by Meng Ming, Yang Wenguang sent scouts and meticulous work to survey the terrain and landform within a radius of 30 miles of Huili, and Yang Wenguang made a sand table covering the landform and terrain within a radius of 30 miles of Huili according to the results of the survey. There are mountain passes, roads, and hidden mountain trails, which are very detailed. Li Zhaoliang and Guo Zun praised the sand table, and they were even more impressed by Yang Wenguang. The three of them took Yang Wenguang as the head coach, and the two were a little unconvinced before, but now they are convinced. However, Yang Wenguang also respects the two of them, and all the judgments and decisions on major military situations are discussed with the two of them, and a consensus is reached before they are implemented. This made the two of them have a good impression of Yang Wenguang, just imagine who doesn't want to be respected.

At this time, the scouts of Western Xia had appeared outside the city of Huili, and the scouts of the Song army had already engaged them, and it was becoming more and more difficult to spy on the enemy, and there were also casualties, indicating that the main force of Western Xia was not far away. Yang Wenguang had already planted 200 mines at night at a distance of two miles from the east gate and the north gate of Huili. Then the general mobilization in front of the station was carried out, and then it entered a state of readiness.

The scouts reported that the main force of the enemy had reached five miles from the north gate of Huili, and there were about 50,000 men. This time, the main commander will be Yeli Wangrong, but the crown prince Li Yuanhao is in charge of the Chinese army. Soon one of the pioneers of the Western Xia army, Lang Gu, came to invite the battle, Di Qing couldn't help but ask Yang Wenguang for battle, Yang Wenguang knew Di Qing's martial arts, and also wanted to frustrate the morale of the Western Xia army and improve his own morale, so he agreed to Di Qing's request. Di Qing went out of the gate, came to the front of the battle to meet the battle, and shouted loudly: "Who is in front of the battle, report your name quickly, your grandfather Di Qing, don't kill the nameless ghost under the knife." The pioneer officer of Western Xia, tall and strong, is as strong as an iron tower, almost 1.9 meters, and makes a pair of hammers. As soon as he heard Di Qing's words, he was so angry that he came over, and shouted as he walked: "Huangkou Xiaoer, Hugh is arrogant, listen well, your grandfather is the vanguard officer of the Great Xia Army, Langgu, suffer death." After that, he raised the double hammer and threw it at Di Qing, Di Qing raised his bending knife to meet him, only to hear a loud noise, Lang Gu turned over and retreated sharply, only to see that his tiger's mouth was cracked, full of blood, Lang Gu saw that he was invincible, and hurriedly retreated. Di Qing hung the knife on the horse's back, reached out to take the bow, drew the bow and shot the arrow, and shot Langgu under the horse in one go. The Song soldiers swarmed up and captured the fallen Langgu in the camp. As soon as the Western Xia army saw that the enemy's morale was high and its own morale was low, it withdrew its troops and fought again tomorrow.

At this time, the Xixia side also found that the reinforcements of the Song army had arrived, the Song army in the city was about 30,000 people, Li Yuanhao and the Western Xia generals were a little discouraged, and now they let the Song army build a strong city, their own is the attacking side, their own 50,000 troops, if they attack, they can't attack at all, so they have to think of other ways.

Before the capture of Huili City by the Song army, the population was about 20,000, most of whom were Dangxiang, and only about 5,000 Han people, a considerable part of whom were taken captive. There were also some merchants of the Great Song Dynasty who did business, and most of them were engaged in smuggling business.

At this time, in a private house in the city near the general's mansion, a stout young man dressed as a Han man came out of the north house, walked to the gate, opened the gate and peeked out, then closed the gate, and inserted the latch from the inside. Then he crept into the kitchen, reached the pot counter, and held the pot up, revealing a black hole just enough for a stout man to pass through. I saw that the man went down the hole, and then put the pot back in its place. Then he went down the hole to the bottom, the man went down two and a half feet deep, the vertical hole was to the end, and then there was a horizontal alley about an adult man high, the general direction was to the direction of the city wall, the man entered the alley, the alley was oblique down, about a hundred meters, there was a bright light in front, and the more he walked, the brighter and brighter. Finally, enter a hall, this hall hidden deep underground, should be a natural cave, very spacious, more than ten zhang long, nearly ten zhang wide, about one and a half zhang high, covering an area of about two acres, there are some small caves on the four sides. At this time, the hall was brightly lit, there were dozens of people standing inside, looking at the sergeant's dress, and there was a person sitting on the high platform in front, it was the costume of the Xixia people, at this time the man came to this person and bowed his hand and said: "Lord Yeli, the villain Qiu Hu, is the deacon of the Yipintang Society, and when he heard the news, he came to meet and listen to the instructions. "This Lord Yeli is Yeli Zhenxian, the younger brother of Yeli Kuilang, who came to the war with Yeli Wangrong and was bent on avenging his brother.

Not to mention that the Western Xia army, which is attacking Huili, is already difficult to advance an inch, and it has tried to attack several times in the past few days, but it is a few thousand teams, and all of them have been defeated. And there were two thousand-strong teams, which entered the two minefields planted by the Song army, and most of them suffered casualties. Seeing this minefield, there are fragments of human and horse bodies everywhere, black blood stains, white brains all over the ground, some have their heads cut off, some have lost their lower bodies, some have been disemboweled, some corpses are charred and mutilated, some have become a pile of minced meat, there is no complete body, it is simply a Shura slaughterhouse in the world. Most of the surviving soldiers went insane.

Li Yuanhao led the generals to the scene of the minefield, and when they saw this tragic situation, they were all frightened, and most of them couldn't bear it, and they vomited with a pale face. Everyone was already in a state of panic and atrophy, and they knew that it was no longer possible for Huili to attack head-on. Then everyone hurriedly returned to the barracks and summoned them to Li Yuanhao's big tent to discuss matters, at this time everyone had not recovered from the panic and shock, and there was silence in the big tent for a while.

I saw a scribe at this time, stood up and said to Li Yuanhao: "His Royal Highness the Prince, don't be panicked, you can't attack it, you can only outwit it, as far as the lower officials know, now there is a secret passage leading to the outside of the city in Huili, and there is a hidden military cave, which can accommodate 200 people, which can be used; Moreover, most of the people in Huili City are from our party and Xiang clan, and they still have their hearts set on Great Xia. Therefore, we first tried to invite the Song army to fight, feigned defeat and retreated, led the main force of the Song army out of the city, and thought that the inside and outside should be combined, and at the same time contacted our side in the city to make chaos in the city, such as assassinating the main general of the Song army, poisoning the well water, etc., so that there was civil strife in Huili City, and then let our fine work take advantage of the chaos to open the city gate, and arrange for a strong brigade of our army to ambush outside the city gate and take advantage of the situation to attack the city. ”

When Li Yuanhao and the generals heard this, they were all in high spirits and praised them repeatedly. Li Yuanhao said happily: "Master Zhang is a good plan, it is really my Zhang Liangye of Great Xia, please hurry up and draw up a plan and implement it according to the plan." "The name of the person who offered this plan is Zhang Yuan, and he is now Li Yuanhao's military advisor. This person was originally a Song person, and when he was young, he was "chivalrous", "dignified, and talented", and his talent was outstanding. In the Northern Song Dynasty, he failed to take the first place (he was deposed during the palace examination), and he thought that his talents were much higher than those mediocre people above the court, and with these people in power, he would never come out. He wanted to find every opportunity to prove his excellence, so that the officials and courtiers of the Great Song Dynasty would regret it, and for this reason, he did not hesitate to betray the Song Dynasty and join the Xia. Historically, Zhang Yuan was determined to destroy the Song Dynasty, and strongly persuaded Yuan Hao to expand the war against the Song Dynasty, capture the land of Guanzhong in Shaanxi, and then go east to the Central Plains, and at the same time contact the Khitan to let it attack Hebei Zhulu, so that the Song Dynasty was attacked from both sides, which brought great harm to the Great Song Dynasty, and made the Great Song Dynasty fall into the quagmire of war with the Western Xia, and the military expenditure rose sharply, which indirectly deteriorated and dragged down the finances of the Great Song Dynasty. After seventy or eighty years of the Song-Xia War, the Western Xia was like a bloodsucker entangled in the Great Song Dynasty, which also indirectly caused the demise of the Northern Song Dynasty. Zhang Yuan's confession of being a thief as his father, bringing disaster to the country and the people, and his crimes are too numerous to mention, and he is a genuine "traitor" and "traitor."

In fact, in Meng Ming's "Strategic Plan for Dealing with the Military Threat of Western Xia", Li Yuanhao and Zhang Yuan were emphatically mentioned, especially Zhang Yuan, who was the initiator and vigorous advocate of the Western Xia's century-old national policy of attacking and destroying the Song Dynasty. Therefore, Meng Ming proposed a plan to destroy his body, but it was better to catch it alive.

Zhang Yuan's strategy was refined and perfected, the most important thing was to create chaos in the city, so that he could explore the daily routines and itinerary of Yang Wenguang, the commander of the Song army, and Li Zhaoliang and Guo Zun, the two deputy marshals. Then poisoned and prevented fire from the well in the city, and led the three to the scene of the incident to assassinate them. At this time, a young general named Yeli Zhenxian took the initiative to ask for help, he was the younger brother of Yeli Kuilang, and wanted to avenge his brother. So there was a scene of hiding a soldier cave under the city.