At the beginning of the war, Huaxia prepared four troops on the northwest border, the most eastward was the first group stationed in Suide, commanded by Major General Sun Li, with a total strength of 17,000 troops.

To the west was the second group stationed in the security guard, commanded by Major General Xu Ning, with a total strength of 15,000.

Then there was the main force, the Li Jinghuai Corps stationed on the front line of Huanzhou and Huaide, with a total strength of 55,000.

On the westernmost side is Zuo Helin's Han and Tibetan coalition forces, currently stationed in Lanzhou.

Wang Qinian's group of thieves voluntarily participated in the war, and was not in the sequence of the General Staff of the Chinese Army in essence.

Among the four troops on the books of the General Staff, Zuo Helin would not have any local supplies, he only had about 3,000 Han soldiers there, which could be supported by relying on the inventory of the Yu collectors captured in Lanzhou, and the other Tubo soldiers carried their own military rations and blades to participate in the battle.

In order to ensure the supply, Gongsun Sheng, the chief of the general staff, was the general representative of the base camp, and each of the six departments sent a delegation of practical officials to the front line to be responsible for dispatching supplies.

To this end, during the preparation for the war, China dispatched 15,000 oxen and horse vehicles with leaf spring shock-absorbing chassis, 30,000 trolleys and nearly 200,000 people (including half of the slaves and commoners belonging to the state) to the front.

In order to ensure the progress of the war, the grain and grass stored by the Chinese Empire on the front line were enough for all the manpower and animal power of the expeditionary force and logistics troops to be used for one and a half years, and it could be replenished at any time.

Of course, this was just to prevent accidents, and no one thought that the little strength of the pseudo-Xia could last more than a year under the attack of the powerful Chinese army.

On the day of the start of the war, the Chinese army of Shaanxi Province first attacked Yinzhou, and the Shenyong Army Division of the Left Wing of the Pseudo-Xia and the Xiangyou Military Division jointly sent troops to resist.

The two sides fought in the field under the city of Yinzhou, the Chinese army won the victory after half an hour, and then the cavalry drove the rout army to storm the gate of Yinzhou, the defender did not have time to close the door, the Chinese cavalry entered the city, the defender of Yinzhou surrendered to the Chinese army that night, and Yinzhou changed hands.

The second group launched an attack a little later, and Xu Ning launched an attack on November 16, but broke through the Great Wall Ridge defense line on the same day and captured Hongzhou the next day.

After a day's rest, Xu Ning continued the offensive, and on November 20 his forward troops arrived in the important town of Yanzhou, and the pseudo-Xia army gathered all the surrounding forces to defend the city.

However, this did not make any sense, the Chinese army directly suppressed the city wall with field artillery, and then used blasting tactics to blow up a huge gap in all four walls of Yanzhou in one day.

Immediately, the Chinese army entered the city with artillery, and any strong defensive points encountered in the city were directly solved with artillery, and the task of the main force became a simple cover for the artillery advance.

As usual, the assault team passed through the wall, avoiding the street entrances where the enemy was heavily defended, and attacked the defenders' flanks and backs by surprise.

The various units coordinated with each other and advanced extremely fast, and the plan conceived by the party members to delay time by taking advantage of the complicated terrain of street fighting was completely ruined, and in the early morning of the 21st, the Chinese army spent seven hours to conquer Yanzhou.

On the 22nd, the reinforcements from the Jianing Military Division arrived at the city of Yanzhou, and they did not know that Yanzhou had fallen for a day and a half at this time, and the party members who had not breathed their breath were easily wiped out by the Chinese army, and the command of the Jianing Military Division killed all the officers in battle.

In just five days, the first and second clusters of the Chinese army wiped out all pseudo-Xia military forces east of Yanzhou and south of the Mu Us Desert.

Li Jinghuai's main army attacked north along the Lingzhou River, and this generation went all the way to Xingqing Province, which was the core territory of the Dangxiang Pseudo-Xia and the richest territory of the Pseudo-Xia, and there was no one.

In order to defend the Great Zhou, the pseudo-Xia, who was not good at defending the city, gritted his teeth and built hundreds of various defensive fortresses in this generation.

Later, the Great Zhou Dynasty moved south, these fortifications were greatly strengthened because of the need to defend against Jurchen and False Gold, and some time ago when the Chinese army began to prepare for war, the Dangxiang people once again strengthened these cities and fortresses, and most of the combat effectiveness of the Xia army was gathered in this area to prepare for a decisive battle.

Now is the time to test the success of these fortifications.

On the 16th, the Chinese army first attacked the Qingyuan Military City, which was a small fortress with a garrison of 2,700 troops, with high walls and thick walls (by the standards of the party members), and was specially equipped with large trebuchets and a few artillery pieces (which the party members themselves groped and imitated).

Li Qianshun, the puppet Xia emperor, hoped that the defenders would be able to hold out for a month, or let the Chinese army go around the city, thus laying a big nail in the logistics line of the Chinese army.

However, it is very sad that Li Jinghuai attacked with siege artillery this time!

Under the muzzle of 20 pounds of cannons and 30 pounds of mortars, the rammed earth and masonry walls were vulnerable, no matter how thick they were built.

What's more, the party members have not been able to build the city wall very thick at all - because the national strength is insufficient.

Li Jinghuai gathered 6 siege artillery companies and 22 field artillery batteries to bombard the Qingyuan military city for two hours in a row, completely crushing the entire south gate, city walls, towers and about one-third of the defenders of this small fortress.

Immediately, the Chinese army entered the city, and it took another twenty minutes to completely deal with the defenders in the city who were frightened by the thunder of the god of war.

After the war, the General Staff of the Chinese Army made a lot of summaries of this battle, as well as a series of siege operations after that:

"Artillery is the god of war, the best means of siege - and the defense of cities."

"Under the muzzle, any old fortifications no longer make sense. These fortifications included our own city walls and most of the military fortresses, defensive lines. Facing an enemy with strong artillery, the defending side must have the ability to win a field battle with the same number of troops in order to interfere with the attacking artillery. ”

"And if the attacking side is weak in artillery fire and the defender, then any action is meaningless."

"At the beginning of the battle of the Yellow River, the defensive means of simply piling up the amount of engineering were useless, and it is recommended that more experiments be carried out in the future and try new defensive methods that can at least play a certain role under artillery fire."

The development of the war was in line with the summary report of the Chinese army, and none of the small but strong fortresses with a garrison of more than 3,000 men were able to play their due role under the attack of the Chinese artillery.

Due to the small number of garrisons, the party defenders could not go out of the city to fight in the field, so the Chinese artillery could test fire one shot at a time, calmly adjust the impact point, until the hit was achieved, and then fire a salvo with maximum firepower.

Traditional brick-clad rammed-earth walls usually collapse in half an hour, during which time the defenders of the wall are unable to make any effective response.

Another drawback of the traditional small forts was that they could not even hide from artillery fire in the city, and after the shelling, they were defended on the front line - the buildings in the city were even less reliable, and there were not enough anti-slope fortifications dug up.

To make matters worse, even if it was perceived that anti-cline fortifications were the easiest way to defend against artillery fire, no one in those small isolated strongholds would be able to escape the encirclement and go to the rear to spread this valuable battlefield experience.