The sky was not yet dawn, and in the hazy morning light, the distant mountains took on a black outline, and the surrounding sky turned blue-white.

"Get up and get ready to go!"

Under a huge stone, a group of sleepy soldiers got out of their sleeping bags, silently tidying up their bags, or going to a distant place for convenience.

The soldiers rolled up their sleeping bags as fast as they could, tied them up and put them behind their saddles, and they took turns running to the stream below to wash their faces with cold water, and after a few sips of water, they quickly ran back.

It only took a stick of incense to clean up, and the brigade commander gave an order, and the twenty soldiers turned over their horses one after another, urging the horses to run into the distance, and gnawed on dry cakes while running.

This is a scout squad of the Longyou Army, a total of twenty people, led by a brigade commander, whose mission is to go to the salt field to check the enemy's situation.

The salt of tens of millions of people under the jurisdiction of King Jin comes from the Hehuang Valley, there are two main salt farms, one is the north bank of Qinghai, and the other is in the cold spring salt lake, of which the salt production of the cold spring salt field accounts for seventy percent, after the cold spring salt field was attacked by the Tubo army, a large amount of salt demand has lost its source, and now it can only rely on the salt supply in the salt storage in Shanxian County, but it can only last for two months in the end.

An Rengui, the envoy of Longyou's soldiers and horses, received an order from Guo Song, asking him to recapture the Lengquan Salt Field as soon as possible and restore the supply of salt.

This 20-person scout team is one of the three scout teams sent by An Rengui to Lengquan to investigate the enemy's situation, the brigade commander is called Yang Qi, a native of Zhangye, Hexi, who has been in the army for seven years, and has been promoted from a scout soldier to a brigade commander.

Lengquan is the name of the place, which is today's Chaka Salt Lake, located in the southwest of Dafei Sichuan, about 100 miles away from Qinghai.

This was originally the territory of Tuyuhun, and after Tuyuhun was annexed by Tubo, it naturally became the territory of Tubo, but it was close to the Hehuang Valley and often became the battlefield of the Tubo army and the Tang army.

After the strategic contraction of Tubo because of the great loss of national strength, this area has not seen the Tubo cavalry for many years, because the terrain here is high, it belongs to the alpine zone, and the Tang army basically does not come, so in recent years, this area is very desolate, except for the passing of the team transporting salt, it has brought a little life.

The scout team passed through a plateau meadow area, and further on, the salt lake of the Cold Spring.

As soon as Yang Qi raised his hand, everyone stopped their horses, and Yang Qi turned around and ordered: "Wang Wei, you take the two brothers to the lake first." ”

Yang Qi has a lot of experience, he knows that there are likely to be Tubo soldiers by the lake, and all of them will reveal their strength in the past, so he will send one or two people over to check first, even if they are discovered, the enemy army will not be able to figure out their details.

"Obey!"

A team member agreed loudly and waved his hand, "Qi Lao Liu and Zhang Wu, follow me!" ”

Two horsemen galloped out, following the team towards the lake.

The salt lake was white, there was originally a salt field by the lake, and dozens of large tents were distributed on the shore, which was the habitat of salt merchants, but now the tents have been destroyed and burned to black, and there are no traces of people.

"Brother Wang, look over there, there seems to be someone!" One of his men shouted pointing to the south.

Wang Wei also saw that a few black spots appeared in the south, which should be cavalry, but soon, from a few black spots to a dozen black spots.

"That's not right! It is the Tibetan patrol post. ”

The Tubo patrol guards are generally not less than twenty-five people, and when they are in trouble, Wang Wei shouts, "Let's go!" ”

The three of them turned their horses and galloped eastward, followed by dozens of patrolmen who clung to them for miles.

After a while, the three of them rushed to the rest place of the team, and Wang Wei waved his hand and shouted: "Brigade commander, there is a Tubo patrol post." ”

Yang Qi's expression was grim, if there was a Tubo cavalry sentry, there must be a Tubo army within a hundred miles, but they withdrew like this, they did not complete the task, and they did not touch the details of the enemy army at all.

After a moment of silence, he suddenly ordered, "Rush south!" ”

Everyone turned their horses' heads and galloped to the south, and soon Wang Wei and the three of them caught up with them, and the cavalry of the brigade ran to the south, and soon, more than 20 Tubo cavalry appeared a few miles away, their task was to intercept the Tang army spies, and more than 20 Tubo cavalry also turned around and galloped southward, about a dozen miles, a river appeared in front, and there was a large forest by the river.

But the cavalry of the Tang army disappeared, and at this moment, another Tubo cavalry patrol also came, and the two patrol posts combined with one army, there were as many as 50 people, and the people were more courageous, and 50 cavalry urged the horses to go to the forest.

Fifty Tibetan patrolmen were walking along the river, looking left and right, looking for horseshoe prints on the ground, when they suddenly heard a sound of 'Click!' Twenty bolts whistled and fired.

The Tibetan cavalry couldn't dodge, and they were hit by arrows one after another, and more than a dozen cavalrymen were shot off their horses in an instant, and the rest of the Tibetan cavalry were taken aback and rushed to the woods in a panic.

They also drew their bows and arrows and shot towards the dense forest on the opposite bank, but it was pitch black and no human figure could be seen.

The Tibetan soldiers who shot off their horses were not killed, they groaned, struggled to get up, and tried to get on their horses to escape, at this time, the second round of crossbow arrows hit again, and more than a dozen wounded soldiers were hit by arrows again, most of them were shot to the vital point, and fell to the ground screaming, this time they basically could not survive.

The Tibetan centurion finally found out the problem, they were backlight, the sun was shining directly into their eyes, so it was dark in the woods on the other side, but the sunlight could shine in the woods on their side, and they could see it very clearly from the opposite side.

The centurion scolded secretly and shouted, "Kill!" ”

Thirty-six Tibetan cavalry shouted and rushed out of the dense forest, rushed into the fast-flowing stream, and killed the dense forest on the opposite bank.

Yang Qi calmly looked at the enemy army and shouted: "Release the arrow!" ”

Twenty of his men took up their crossbows and fired, and twenty crossbow arrows shot out strongly, shooting head-on at the rushing Tubo soldiers, whose leather armor could not block the sharp crossbow arrows, and the ten cavalrymen who ran in front were shot one after another, screaming in pain, falling from their horses into the turbulent stream, and were immediately washed away by the water.

But the other 20 or so Tubo cavalry has rushed ashore and killed into the dense forest, and the Tang cavalry swung spears from all directions to kill.

The two armies have their own advantages, the Tang army's equipment obviously has the upper hand, they are all Mingguang armor, with horizontal knives, standard spears, crossbows and round shields, very well-equipped, and the Tubo patrol posts are leather armor, using short swords, which is also related to their extremely low pig iron production, their pig iron is basically plundered from the Tang Dynasty, and it has been almost consumed over the years.

However, the Tibetan soldiers were very adaptable to plateau warfare, full of physical strength and fierce combat, while the Tang army was only well-trained, but it was naturally inferior to the other side in physical strength.

It was precisely because of this that the Tubo cavalry disregarded it and had to fight the Tang army head-on, trying to win by relying on abundant physical strength.

After a fierce battle for about half an hour, the Tang army suffered five casualties, while the other side lost ten, which made the Tibetan centurion a little frightened, and the other party was much stronger than he thought.

The experience of the Tubo centurion is not wrong, if it is an ordinary Tang army, their physical strength really cannot support the fierce battle on the plateau for half an hour, but this Tang army is not an ordinary Tang army, but a scout Tang army, the elite of the Tang army. They have been training on the plateau for a long time, and their physical strength is no worse than that of the Tibetan soldiers, which is also the confidence that they dare to fight fiercely with the Tibetan army on the plateau.

Another important reason is the tactical coordination, they have trained the jungle cavalry to fight, the essence of the jungle combat tactics is to cooperate in pairs, the use of big trees to separate, can attack the enemy from the left and right, when the Tibetan soldiers are fighting with a Tang soldier on the left, there will be a spear on the right silently piercing, a spear piercing the body.

The Tang army has been training for many years and has cooperated very tacitly, and the Tubo soldiers who died in battle were basically killed by this tactic.

After nearly an hour of fierce fighting, the Tang army became more and more courageous, but the Tibetan soldiers suffered heavy casualties, only seven or eight people remained, and there were still fourteen or fifteen people on the other side, the Tubo centurion realized that something was wrong and shouted: "Exit the dense forest!" Get out of the jungle! ”

They didn't want to retreat, they just planned to change the battlefield and fight in the dense forest, and they suffered too much loss.

The Tibetan army has always fought to the death and never retreated, they could only win a miserable victory, and take the enemy's head to repay the merit, but if they suffered heavy casualties and returned empty-handed, the main general and deputy general were beheaded, and the other soldiers were reduced to slavery.

Cruel military discipline meant that the Tibetan army would either win or die in battle, and would never be allowed to retreat unless ordered to retreat by the commander-in-chief.

The Tibetan soldiers could not retreat, the Tang army had surrounded them, and they had the advantage of numbers, so they vacated five soldiers, who hid in a place and fired cold arrows, so that the Tibetan cavalry could not be guarded.

After a few rounds of arrows, there were only three soldiers left, but they were still strong and did not retreat, Yang Qi knew very well that the other party would not surrender, so he shouted: "Kill them all!" ”

The scouts swarmed up, and ten spears pierced the bodies of the last three Tibetan cavalrymen.

In this encounter, the Tang army lost three people, seriously wounded two people, and slightly injured two people, while all 50 people on the other side were killed in battle, and none of them survived.

Without enemy patrols, the Tang scouts finally discovered the target at night, and a thousand-strong Tibetan army was stationed twenty miles southeast of the salt lake.

(End of chapter)