Returning to Shazhou, Guo Song made a special attempt to take a new path, and under the guidance of his guide, they crossed the desert rocky beach from the north of Puchang Sea to the foot of the majestic Kuruktag Mountain.

This is a bare rock and soil bald mountain group, most of them are strange rocky landforms, ravines and ravines, extremely desolate, but many valleys are distributed with large alpine meadows, a large number of deer live in the mountains, and more than a dozen small rivers from the mountains gather melted ice and snow water to flow down, through the desert mountains, until flowing into the Puchang Sea.

As it turned out, they had chosen the right path, the troops were fed with fresh water from the small river, and the endless desert was a hundred miles to the south, but they marched from the valley meadows, and the absence of the vast wind and sand made them march much faster.

This road is actually the ancient Silk Road Road, they also saw the ruins of the ancient country of Loulan in the desert in the distance, after three days of departure from Puchanghai, they entered the desert, but this desert is not big, only dozens of miles wide, they entered the desert in the morning, and came out of the desert in the evening and entered the boundary of Shazhou.

It took only four days to walk from Puchanghai to the desert, which was two days shorter than when they came, and more importantly, they only walked less than fifty miles wide in the desert, and the journey became comfortable.

"Old county king, I think it is completely possible to build a garrison fort at the foot of the mountain!"

After passing through the narrow desert, Guo Song said to Guo Xin very excitedly: "The Tubo people have to pass through the Tulun Desert for nearly a thousand miles and the vast Gobi Desert for hundreds of miles, the terrain is complex, the mountains are sheltered, and it is easy to get lost.

We built the fort on a high place, even if the Tubo people were lucky enough to find the fort, but there were not enough siege weapons to take it, relying on this fort, inns, taverns and other businesses can also develop, caravans will follow, go to Yanji, Qiuzi, Gumo, Shule to Tocharo, which is much closer than taking the northern route to Tocharo. ”

Guo Xin nodded, "The Tang army can build a fort, and at the same time, it can also mobilize a part of the Yanji herdsmen to come over, even if there is no caravan, they can also graze." ”

"There will be caravans, and there are many Sogdians in Zhangye who will go to Tocharian alone, and I will tell them the news when I go back."

"Then I'll start implementing it when I get back."

Guo Xin is just old and steady, in fact, he is more excited and eager than Guo Song, it is no exaggeration to say that this is a survival channel to ensure the Tang army in Anxi, and he will establish it no matter what.

At noon the next day, the team arrived in Dunhuang, Guo Xin and his men were warmly welcomed by the people of Dunhuang, Guo Song was more concerned about the situation of the Tubo supply army, he urgently summoned the remaining general Yao Jin, but learned that Yao Jin led 3,000 cavalry to pursue the supply team of Tubo.

Yao Jin's lieutenant Gan Xin reported to Guo Song on the situation of the Tibetan supply team.

"Qi Yu envoy, the supply team of Tubo turned around when they reached the Dangjin Pass, it is estimated that they feel that the situation is not good, but it has been discovered by our scouts, the supply team carries a large herd of materials, General Yao does not want to let go of this supply team, so he led three thousand cavalry to catch up, it has been three days, there is no news yet."

"And how many guards are there on the other side?"

"There are about 1,000 people."

Guo Song was worried in his heart, if Yao Jin encountered Tibetan reinforcements, it would be troublesome, and he immediately ordered Liang Wu to lead the first battalion of cavalry to support Yao Jin.

..........

Dangjin Pass is a canyon between Altun Mountain and Qilian Mountain, and it is also the only valley road from the plateau into Shazhou, this valley is about seven or eight miles wide, through the valley mouth, the field of vision is suddenly broad, on both sides is the continuous reckless snow mountain, all year round, the plateau is desert, covered with sparse vegetation.

Before Yao Jin sent his troops to pursue, more than a dozen Tang army scouts had already stared at this huge Tubo logistics supply team like wolves, and they were also carrying out the commander's important admonition, seizing as much as possible the enemy's logistics materials to supplement the lack of allocation of the imperial court.

Yao Jin led 3,000 cavalry to pursue along the marks left by the scouts, they turned south after entering the Dangjin Pass, ran out of more than 100 miles, in front of the Ganquan River, the Ganquan River is the most important river that flows into Shazhou from the plateau, it is the mother river of Dunhuang, this river will also cut out a mountain pass in the mountains, the river is frozen in winter, you can pass through this river valley, but after spring and summer, the river is turbulent, the banks on both sides are very narrow, you can not drive the cart, you can only walk the sheep.

The cavalry of the Tang Army went south from the north to the Ganquan River, and continued to pursue southward along the west bank of the Ganquan River.

Yao Jin vaguely guessed that more than 1,200 miles south along the Ganquan River is Hara Lake, which is a large Tuyuhun settlement and an important logistics base in Tubo, and logistics support should come from there.

But the other side's logistics team should not go fast, especially with a flock.

After four days of pursuit, in the afternoon, the cavalry were resting in a mountain col, the altitude here was about the same as that of Shazhou, and the Tang soldiers basically had no big problems, they rested and drank water one after another, and gave water to the war horses.

Yao Jin was a little annoyed, the dry rations they carried could only last for a maximum of nine days, and now four days had passed, if they could not find the enemy's logistics before noon tomorrow, they would have to retreat.

At this moment, there was a hurried sound of horses' hooves outside the col, and a soldier shouted: "General, it seems to be our scout!" ”

Yao Jin hurriedly greeted him, and the people who came were two Tang Army scouts, Yao Jin was overjoyed, he saw hope.

The two scouts turned over and dismounted, stepped forward and knelt down on one knee and saluted, "See General Yao!" ”

Yao Jin hurriedly said: "Hurry up, what important information do you have?" ”

The leading soldier reported: "The other side has discovered our attempt, and a thousand Tibetan cavalry will intercept it thirty miles away to cover the retreat of the baggage brigade to the south. ”

"Is there a lot of grain and grass?"

"A lot! There were no less than 500,000 sheep alone, and thousands of carts carrying wheat and supplies. ”

Yao Jin knew in his heart that if he wanted to seize the enemy's grain and grass, he must completely annihilate these thousand escort cavalry.

Yao Jin pondered for a moment, beckoned, and summoned the deputy general Wu Zhiyuan forward, Yao Jin said to him: "You lead a thousand brothers to go around to the south and attack the enemy cavalry from behind, pay attention to the timing, and attack before me!" ”

"Humble duty understands!"

Wu Zhi saluted from afar and immediately led a thousand cavalry to take the first step.

Yao Jin immediately ordered: "The whole army is on horseback and ready to fight!" ”

Two thousand Tang troops turned on their horses, rushed out of the valley with spears in hand, and galloped to the south.

Running for more than 20 miles, a black line really appeared in front, Yao Jin waved his hand, the cavalry slowed down, they raised their spears, walked slowly, getting closer and closer to the Tubo cavalry, and finally stopped at a mile.

'Woo-', the Tubo cavalry blew the horn, they were just about to attack, there was a big chaos behind them, and a thousand Tang cavalry suddenly killed from behind, taking the Tubo cavalry by surprise.

Yao Jin waved his spear and shouted: "Kill! ”

"Kill—"

The cavalry of the two thousand Tang Army shouted in unison, urging the war horses to kill the enemy, and the war horses galloped, rolling up the sand and dust in the sky, and swept away towards Tubo.

The Tubo cavalry suffered from the enemy on their backs, and the originally assembled formation was quickly crushed, and they could not use the formation to fight the Tang army, so they had to fight fiercely with the 3,000 Tang cavalry.

The cavalry of the Tang Army was well-trained and cooperated tacitly, they took a team of 100 people, and constantly launched an attack on the enemy's assembly group, like a sharp knife, breaking up and chopping the enemy formation, and then killing the enemy soldiers with several times the strength, and quickly turning to another person.

The number of the Tubo army was originally much smaller than that of the Tang army, and they wanted to rely on their strong combat effectiveness to defeat the Tang army by winning more with less, but the Tang army's one move to flank the front and back attacks broke the formation carefully prepared by the Tubo army, which plunged the Tubo army into chaos, but the Tang army became more and more courageous, and the advantages of being well-trained were brought into full play.

The Tibetan cavalry desperately counterattacked, but to no avail, the army became less and less, even the commander of the Tubo thousand men also died in the chaos, after the fierce battle for more than half an hour, the Tubo cavalry only had more than 300 people left, they desperately broke through, but were still surrounded by the Tang Legion.

"Bow and arrow shooting!"

Yao Jin gave an order, the Tang army shot from the periphery, a dense burst of arrows shot out, the Tubo cavalry fell off their horses one after another, and only more than a hundred people remained, but they were still trapped in the beast You Dou, Yao Jin was furious, waved his knife and ordered: "Kill it, no one will be left!" ”

The Tang cavalry surged upward, and the last group of Tibetan soldiers gradually disappeared.

This encounter lasted nearly an hour, and the total annihilation of 1,000 Tibetan cavalry, the Tang army also paid the price of hundreds of casualties.

Yao Jin then ordered Wu Yuanzhi to lead hundreds of men to take care of the wounded soldiers and clean up the battlefield, while he personally led 2,000 cavalry to chase south.

After chasing less than 30 miles, they finally saw a large flock of sheep and a cart pulled by oxen, and the Tibetan herdsmen who drove the cart saw the overwhelming Tang cavalry behind them, so frightened that they abandoned the sheep and the cart, mounted their horses and ran for their lives.

In just a moment, the Tang army caught up with the logistics baggage team of Tubo, and this piece of fat finally fell into the mouth of the Tang army.