From Gu'an County to the north, is the important town of Fanyang, Fanyang, also known as Zhuozhou, that is, the foundation of An Lushan's rebellion against the Tang Dynasty.

The scale of Fanyang City is not small, and Yelu Xiuge did not give up here, so Li Zhongyi led his troops here.

In this era, the Sanggan River was connected to Zhuoshui, which passed through the territory of Fanyang.

Li Jiajun marched along Zhuoshui, divided into two roads by water and land, and the army rolled forward mightily.

Previously, Yelu Hugo deliberately drove the Han people south, with extremely sinister intentions, obviously wanting to consume the grain stocks in Li Zhongyi's army.

However, there were also rules for driving out the Han people, and Brother Hugh only drove out the Han peasants in the suburbs, but did not move the Han people in the county towns.

is completely different from what Yelu Hugo imagined, how many Han people he drove out of his homeland, and Li Zhongyi opened his mind to collect as many Han people.

The concept of more people is powerful, more people occupy more land, and more people are easy to work, Yelu Hugo doesn't understand it at all, but Li Zhongyi understands it very well.

Outside the city of Fanyang, there was a force of more than 50,000 Khitans, and there were also 30,000 Khitans and 10,000 Youzhou Han troops in the city, with a total strength of an astonishing 90,000.

After Li Zhongyi learned the news, he touched his chin, thought about it, and then smiled: "It seems that Brother Hugh actually wants to fight me in Fanyang?" ”

He Dabei, secretary of the General Staff of Tongzhi, said: "Fanyang is the gateway to Youzhou, if this city is lost, it will be difficult to defend Youzhou." ”

Zhang Sanzheng saw Li Zhongyi turning his head to stare at him, so he had to bite the bullet and say: "Youzhou is not as good as Saiwai, and the Khitan people are very much in need of the winter food supplied by the Youji Great Plain, and I am afraid that they are reluctant to give up." ”

Li Zhongyi nodded, looked at Gao Qiang again, Gao Qiang thought for a while, and said: "I think Brother Hugh himself doesn't want to fight our army immediately, it is likely that there is a disagreement among the Khitans, after all, before the first battle, they retreated so far, it is impossible to say." ”

Li Zhongyi smiled and said, "The Khitans are very cunning, and they should have mastered the key to defending the city. The so-called truth that it is difficult to defend a lonely city, Yelu Hugo may know very well. Now, the Khitan cavalry outside the city and the defenders in the city are fighting each other, making it difficult for our army to take care of the head and tail. ”

He Dabei saw Li Zhongyi looking at him, and immediately clasped his fists and said: "180,000 is better than 90,000 or 100,000, our army is almost twice as many troops, if this kind of battle can't be won, it's better to find a piece of tofu and kill it." ”

Li Zhongyi said with a smile: "Lao Liao, you lead 90,000 people to monitor the Khitans outside the city, and I will lead the remaining soldiers and horses to attack Fanyang City, let's break them down one by one, how about it?" ”

Liao Shanhe said with some dissatisfaction: "Lord, the minister wants to break through Fanyang City......"

Li Zhongyi didn't wait for Liao Shanhe to finish complaining, then waved his hand and said, "It's decided." If you want to ask why, I'll tell you the truth, I know more about artillery than you do. ”

In the entire Li family army, including Yang Lie, no one understands the profound connotation of artillery better than Li Zhongyi, this is a well-known fact!

"Lao Liao, I will transfer all of Li Courage's cavalry army to you, your task is to watch the Khitan cavalry to the death, and don't interfere with my army's siege." Li Zhongyi gave an order very seriously.

Now that Li Zhongyi had made up his mind, Liao Shanhe had no power to return to the sky, so he had to swallow his saliva and say loudly: "Obey the order." ”

Li Zhongyi raised his hand and patted Liao Shanhe's shoulder, and said with seriousness: "You not only have to keep an eye on the Khitans on the other side, but also guard against the Khitans in the dark, understand?" ”

Liao Shanhe grinned and whispered: "You gave me 90,000 soldiers and horses to keep an eye on 50,000 Khitans, how can there be such an easy task?" If a certain family's expectations are good, Yelu Hugh is probably trying to take advantage of the chaos, right? ”

Li Zhongyi laughed, patted Liao Shanhe's shoulder again, and said, "The son can be taught!" Fan Yang is a pit, it depends on who will enter the pit and who can get out of the pit? You kid is a smart man, I won't talk a lot of nonsense, just wait for the good news of your triumphant return. ”

After Liao Shanhe left, Li Zhongyi did not give the slightest ambiguous order to only attack the south gate of Fanyang City and let go of the rest of the gates.

The Khitans were very clever to place heavy troops outside the city, and the purpose was actually obvious, that is, to make it impossible for the Li family army to concentrate on attacking the city.

Yelu Xiuge really deserved to be the first general of the Khitans, he took advantage of the disadvantage of the Li family's army with few cavalry, and deliberately placed 50,000 elite palace troops outside the city, and there were fewer soldiers and horses defending the city.

The Khitans were neither good at attacking or defending cities, and Yelu Hugo simply supplemented them with defending cities, and cavalry mainly fought with cavalry.

In this game of chess in Fanyang City, the 50,000 elite palace troops outside the city are the chess tendons of the entire board.

The Li family's siege ability, as well as the power of the artillery bombardment of the city, Yang Lie had already performed it, and Brother Xiu had already learned the details from the mouths of the defeated army that fled back.

It is precisely because of this that Yelu Hugo simply did not deal with Yang Lie's guerrilla warfare, but focused on Li Zhongyi.

Brother Yelu Hugh calculated very clearly, as long as he defeated Li Zhongyi's main army, and then went back to clean up Yang Lie's partial army, it would be ten times easier?

Li Zhongyi expected that Yelu Xiuge would have a follower, and he also adopted a strategy of dividing the troops according to the situation, and ordered Liao Shanhe to lead the cavalry army and tens of thousands of infantry troops to stare at the Khitan cavalry outside Fanyang City.

After Liao Shanhe got the command, he immediately issued a military order, allowing the 90,000 army to approach the 50,000 Khitans outside the city step by step.

After so many years of drills and summaries, Li Jiajun's top and bottom know that the greatest advantage of the Khitans is their super mobility ability.

Liao Shanhe took an oppressive approach-for-tat, and the purpose was actually very clear, to set up a large array of infantry troops to crush the past, to see if the Khitans were fighting, or leaving?

Objectively speaking, with the current infantry strength of the Li family's army, not to mention only 50,000 Khitan cavalry, even if it is 150,000 Khitan elite cavalry, it is impossible to break through the line set by the 90,000 army of the Liaoshan River Department who are waiting for the battle.

Even the Song army, which was scolded as a weak Song dynasty in later generations, never lost a single defeat when it fought head-to-head with the grassland tribe army.

The great defeat of the Song army was often the cutting off of the grain route or the sneak attack on the march. For example, the battle of attacking Youyun under the personal command of Zhao Laosan was a few months after the troops were stationed under the city, and they were caught off guard by the sudden attack of Yelu Xiuge, so that it caused the tragedy of the defeat of the Gaoliang River.

said that it has changed, in the face of the Li family army in a large array, the 50,000 Khitans outside Fanyang City are facing a severe test, fight or go, choose one of the two!

When Li Zhongyi heard that the Khitans outside the city were forced to start moving, he couldn't help but smile happily, the battle of Fanyang was likely to be a rehearsal for the decisive battle in Youzhou.