The Qiang cavalry originally joined forces in a hurry, and they didn't have much fighting spirit. In addition to not wanting too strong external forces to intervene in Chengzhou, they still listened to Hou Mo's words to wait for work, thinking that there was a bargain to be gained.

In this state of mind, there may be no problem for the Qiang cavalry to fight a tailwind battle, but I didn't think that the Liangzhou army that came from afar would be so brave, and the armor was also very strong, and the work of two sticks of incense killed more than 100 of them.

Seeing that there was no hope of victory, the Qiang cavalry retreated in a panic, and no one was willing to stay at the east entrance of Niuwei Gorge and fight with the elite of their own clan and the Liangzhou army.

When Zhang Song and Li Zhihe joined together, they saw that thousands of enemy horsemen had dropped more than 100 corpses and had fled to the canyon on the west side.

Although the Liangzhou army also suffered hundreds of casualties, it can be said to be a great victory because it attacked and rode on foot and attacked with labor.

Most of the generals didn't expect the Qiang cavalry to be so vulnerable, and at this time they all felt tired and sleepy and swept away, and many generals and military attaches who had not caught the battle just now crowded to Li Zhihe's side, and asked to lead their troops to pursue the enemy cavalry.

"Commander, Luoyang Jia is really a thief, you look at the dozens of pimples on this armor, all of them were shot by the Qiang people with strong bows at close range, and they didn't even break a hole; It was also brave to be brave, and he poked two holes in the armor with a spear, but he didn't penetrate too deeply, and I was stabbed in the thigh...... "Zhang Song was so tired that he couldn't help but feel soft in his hands and feet after unloading his strength, and sat on the mud road with his ass, and he didn't care about etiquette in front of Li Zhihe, knocked on his helmet sonorously, and shouted excitedly.

This time, the forwards and horses who marched westward this time also had the responsibility of opening up the road, and there were no large numbers of military horses and camels to transport materials, and the generals were all lightly armoured.

There are more than ten pairs of full-covered plate armor sent by Luoyang this time, one of which is about fifty catties, although it is much heavier than ordinary leather armor, it is still lighter than the full-covered armor.

Li Zhihe thought that this kind of armor had weaker protection when resisting spear stabs, but he didn't expect that the protective performance was superior to that of gold-covered armor.

Li Zhihe didn't care about listening to Zhang Song's chatter at this time, and led Dong Zehai and He Yan to lead the 1,200 generals who had not fought just now and had recovered a certain amount of rest, and continued to advance along the post road to the mouth of the canyon, taking advantage of the enemy's panicked retreat and unstable formation, and be sure to control the west gorge mouth of the Niuji Post in their hands before nightfall.

That is the exit into the hilly area at the western foot of the Qinling Mountains, as long as he occupies it first, he does not have to worry about being blocked by the enemy army to the east of Niuwei Gorge and unable to enter Longyou.

The former generals who had just participated in the fierce battle stayed in place to rest.

The time of the whole battle seems to be not long, and it is only two sticks of incense before and after, but for the former generals who have been rushing for days and have been seriously overdrawn in physical strength, at this time, the physical pressure is not much and is squeezed to the limit.

The medical team also came forward to bandage the wounds of the wounded soldiers, and the seriously wounded set up tents on the spot for rescue, and more than 30 of the war dead were also buried on the spot, and the enemy army had more than 60 war horses that had fled to the river beach to gather up, and more than 10 wounded enemy soldiers were also captured.

After interrogating the wounded enemy soldiers, Li Zhihe and Zhang Song learned that just seven days ago, Wusu Dashi sent envoys from Taiyuan to formally appoint Hou Mo, the chief of the Hou clan of the Zhuqiang Party Xiang Department, to assassinate Chengzhou and accept the control of Wang Xiaoxian, the newly canonized king of Longyou County.

Li Zhihe and Zhang Song only knew at this time why they didn't notice the abnormality of Chengzhou in advance, the scouts they sent left Chengzhou ten days ago, maybe the secret envoys of the Mughal people had not officially contacted the Hou clan at that time, but they also felt very lucky.

If Hou Mo had accepted the appointment of the Mughurs a month or two earlier, and had united the Qiang tribes of Chengzhou more closely, and even led Wang Xiao's troops and horses into Chengzhou, they would definitely not have been so easy if they wanted to enter Chengzhou through the Niuji Post Road.

And it was precisely a few days after Hou Mo accepted the appointment of the Mughu, the Zhuqiang tribe and several Han people may not agree with this so-called appointment in their hearts, and when they reconnoitred four days ago, they reconnoitred that the soldiers and horses of the Liangzhou army were advancing westward along the ancient road on the north bank of the rhinoceros River, and Hou Mo invited all the tribes in the territory to form an alliance, and only Shanglucheng hastily put together more than 1,500 horsemen, and hastily pulled out two-thirds of the soldiers and horses to rush to the front of Niuwei Gorge to intercept, but they did not expect that the first battle was defeated.

This is definitely a heavy blow to the prestige of the new Chengzhou Assassin.

As soon as the interrogation was over, Dong Zehai, the general of the Chinese army, sent someone to report that they had chased to the west entrance of Niuwei Gorge, and that the Qiang cavalry had tried to gather troops to counterattack, but the Qiang cavalry was not in harmony, and each had a ghost fetus, and the two sides fought each other at the mouth of the West Gorge for less than a stick of incense, and forty or fifty Qiang cavalry were killed and dismounted, and the rest scattered in a swarm.

At the mouth of the West Gorge of Niuwei Gorge, they captured seven wounded enemy soldiers and more than 30 war horses, and their casualties were less than half of the enemy's.

In the early years of Xiangbei, there was a shortage of war horses, and there were more than 10,000 military horses, and they fled to Liangzhou in defeat, and Li Zhihe had more than 3,000 military horses left in his hands, and almost all of them were killed at the beginning of the year to make up for the lack of military rations; There are only a few horses left.

Even the horsemen beside Li Zhihe, after Feng Yi and Lu Ze arrived in Chuyang, they first sent out more than 50 war horses to act as mounts.

Unexpectedly, when he first entered Chengzhou, he captured more than 100 warlike horses, and Zhang Song happily planned to form a cavalry battalion in order to gallop among the hills, deserts and grasslands of Longxi, so that the tribes could be subdued.

Li Zhihe asked Zhang Song to stay and lead more than 700 generals who had just participated in the battle to camp in place to rest, and he rushed to the west entrance of Niuwei Gorge surrounded by Hu Wei and joined Dong Zehai and He Yan......

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After Feng Yi and Lu Ze learned the news that the forward soldiers and horses were engaged in the enemy, they led two hundred light horsemen to rush over in advance in the early morning of the next day and met Zhang Song first; Although Deng Tai led the main force of the rear army to also hit the road, the main force of the rear army was all foot soldiers, and there were heavy grain and grass accompanying them, and the speed was not fast, not to mention that it would take six or seven days to arrive.

Feng Yi, Zhang Song, and Lu Ze led more than 900 generals into Niuwei Gorge and rushed to the west entrance.

Li Zhihe did not continue to kill Shanglu County, which was only forty miles to the northwest, but set up camp on the valley at the foot of Moliang Mountain outside the west entrance, and a stream that was almost exhausted after winter was in front of the valley.

"The enemy army is weak, the people's hearts are not aligned, we were defeated in both battles, it can be said that it is vulnerable, the thief marshal Hou Mo is estimated to regret coming forward to accept the appointment of the Mughu, why doesn't the superintendent go to Shanglu City to kill in one go, and then rest after taking Shanglu City?" Zhang Song, Feng Yi, and Lu Ze walked into the big tent, and saw that Li Zhihe was treating several prisoners as guests, and was asking about the situation in Chengzhou, so he couldn't help but ask in confusion.

Li Zhihe asked Feng Yi, Lu Ze and Zhang Song to sit down and talk together, explaining why he was not in a hurry to send troops into Shanglu County:

"The hearts of the Qiang tribes are not aligned, even if they have just been entrusted by the Mugyu people to the post of assassin of Chengzhou

Hou Mo didn't want the elite of his own clan to fight with us, so he fled back when he encountered a little resistance in the field battle, which was not surprising, but Shanglu City was small and strong, and it was the foundation of the Hou clan, so they couldn't give up easily. And we have no siege weapons available, and it is difficult to persuade the Hou clan to surrender in a short time, so it is difficult to take Shanglu City at this time. ”

Feng Yi nodded, expressed his understanding of Li Zhihe's consideration, and asked, "How are you going to fight next?" ”

Although when he set out from Luoyang, Han Qian asked Feng Yi not to interfere with Li Zhihe's decision as much as possible, but as the military envoy of the capital supervisor, it is impossible to say that he completely ignored Li Zhihe's strategy of using troops.

Li Zhihe replied: "After Hou Mo defeated Niuwei Gorge yesterday, he sent people to Tianshui to ask for help, Wang Xiaoxian did not have many troops in Tianshui, even if the whole army came out, there were only 4,000 horse infantry, we rested for two days, and we could meet the enemy in Shangliang Gorge first." As long as the enemy aid is broken, I believe that all families in Chengdu will have their own choices......"

Chengzhou is sandwiched between the southwest foot of Longshan and the western foot of the Qinling Mountains, Wang Xiaoxian does not send reinforcements, if the reinforcements are sent from the west foot of Longshan Mountain to the south, and then from the south foot of Longshan along the ancient road of Niujiyi to the east quickly, Shangliang Gorge is the way it must pass.

As long as they can ambush the reinforcements from Tianshui in Shangliang Gorge and defeat them, it will be possible to deter and subdue the Zhuqiang tribes in Chengzhou, and it will be possible to capture Shanglu City without a fight.

Feng Yi nodded, and at the same time said worriedly:

"When the generals first entered Chengzhou, if they don't get enough rest, they will have to fight one after another, and I'm afraid the losses will be not small."

"At this time, if you don't fight hard, it is difficult to gain a foothold in Longyou, but as long as you can repel enemy reinforcements, you can open up the situation a little." Li Zhihe said.

"The main force of Inspector Li's forward guards the mouth of Shangliang Gorge, I can lead the cavalry to ambush in the valley on the flank, and when the time is right, I can kill it as a surprise soldier!" Lu Ze heard Li Zhihe talk about his strategy for using troops, and then looked at the topographic map on the left and right of Liangxia There are many peaks and valleys, and there are many places where two hundred cavalry can be hidden, so he asked for battle.

"Good!"

The 200 cavalry led by Lu Ze and Yang Mu, accompanied by Feng Yi from Luoyang, can be said to be Feng Yi's army, Li Zhihe will not take the initiative to charge into battle with these 200 cavalry, but Lu Ze will take the initiative to ask for battle, and he will not refuse.

After all, the combat effectiveness of these two hundred elite cavalry should not be underestimated at this time.

After discussing the details of the specific ambush operation, Li Zhihe sent Zhang Songxian to lead his troops to Liangxia to prepare for the battle.

Then Li Zhihe ordered to bring all the prisoners of the previous two wars over, except for the prisoners of the Hou family, he and Feng Yi decided to let go of the other prisoners, and even offered a bunch of jewels and jade with their own hands, so that they could bring them back to the tribe to show their intentions.

Feng Yi saw that Li Zhihe was not worried that the news of the ambush of enemy reinforcements in Shangliang Gorge would leak out in advance, and he naturally did not object, besides, they had already entered the territory of Chengzhou at this time, and every move on the north bank of the Rhino River could not be concealed from the nearby tribes, and now Zhang Song led his troops to enter Shangliang Gorge in advance for deployment, and those with a little military knowledge could figure out what their intentions were.

Now it's up to these tribes to judge the situation

Besides, even if a few tribes were determined to leak their plan to ambush the enemy reinforcements in Shangliang Gorge to the Tianshui defenders, this would only slow down the southward reinforcements of the Tianshui defenders.

This not only gave them more time to build fortifications in Shangliang Gorge, but also gave them time to wait for the subsequent soldiers and horses to enter Chengzhou.

And their ultimate goal was to subdue the tribes and Han people in Chengzhou, not to annihilate the local forces in Chengzhou.

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Hou Mo accepted the reward of the Mugyus, in addition to coveting the gold, silver and jewelry sent by the Mugwu envoys, he still wanted to rule the divided Chengzhou in the name of the Mughurs.

Three days later, Yuan Shouqin, the general of Tianshui, led 3,000 soldiers and horses to reinforce Chengzhou and arrived at Shangliang Gorge.

At this time, the main force of the rear army led by Deng Tai was still halfway, but the Zhuqiang tribe of Chengzhou chose to wait and see, even if Hou Mo, who accepted the appointment of the Mengwu people as the assassin of Chengzhou, led the Hou clan soldiers to defend Shanglu City and did not send troops to participate in the battle.

Li Zhihe personally led his troops and horses to dig trenches and build protective walls at the mouth of the west gorge of Shangliang Gorge to resist the enemy's attack.

The enemy attacked for two days and failed to take Shangliang Gorge, so he thought of retreating to Fangzuka Mountain to the west to rest.

Taking advantage of the enemy's retreat to the west, Lu Ze personally led two hundred elite cavalry to rush out of the pass valley that had been ambushed four days in advance in the north, and stabbed into the enemy line from the flank like an extremely sharp knife.

The 3,000 men and horses led by Yuan Shou, all of them were horse infantry, and when they arrived at Shangliang Gorge, they gathered their horses together, and more than 3,000 soldiers dismounted to form many arrays, and took turns to attack the Liangzhou army defending Shangliang Gorge, completely unaware that there were ambushes hidden in the pass valley in the north.

Seeing that the strong attack was fruitless and his generals suffered heavy casualties, Yuan Shou decided to temporarily withdraw his troops to the west.

At this time, in addition to leaving a soldier and horse to block the counterattack of the Liangzhou army at the west entrance of Shangliang Gorge, the other soldiers needed to retrieve the military horses in order to quickly retreat westward, and the scattered and disorderly inside could also be seen.

Lu Ze led his troops to kill, although the enemy army was also alert in advance, and organized more than 200 sword and shield soldiers on the flank to intercept, but in the face of strong crossbows that could shoot through wooden shields at close range, wielding halberd long knives, more than 200 horse shield soldiers could not resist half a cup of tea, and they were killed.

The enemy panicked, and a small group of brave soldiers had no way to intercept Lu Ze and them, Lu Ze specifically stared at the general banner of the enemy's main general, Yuan Shou, and rammed through the depths of the enemy formation.

Li Zhihe also led the main force of the striker to cross the trench at this time.

The enemy general Yuan Shou could not hold on for long, seeing that the situation was hopeless, and fled in a hurry, and the remaining Shu soldiers completely collapsed, either kneeling and surrendering, or being ruthlessly shot and killed by bows and crossbows.

By dusk, Li Zhihe had withdrawn his soldiers and horses to Shangliang Gorge, where they had killed thousands of Shu soldiers and captured more than 900 Shu soldiers, and the Liangzhou army and the Luoyang cavalry had less than 500 casualties in two days.

If it weren't for the fact that the main force of the rear army was slow to take the rhinoceros road, the bulk of heavy materials would be even more lagging behind, and they didn't have enough military horses, they took advantage of the enemy's rout to kill Tianshui, captured most of Qinzhou, and completely blocked Wang Xiaoxian's department to the east of Longshan, which was not unimaginable.

Although it is only 300 miles from Chuyang and Luoyang, the rhinoceros post is too narrow and dangerous, and the generals are overwhelmed, and they have not been given sufficient rest, accumulating nearly 600 casualties, and there is no combat effectiveness to continue to pursue and defeat the enemy and attack the city for the time being.

After gathering the soldiers and horses back to Shangliang Gorge, Li Zhihe did not rush to use troops against the Zhuqiang tribes between Shangliang Gorge and Niuwei Gorge and north of the Rhino River, as well as the two cities of Shanglu and Tonghe, but officially sent them with Feng Yi in the name of the Great Liang Longyou Xuan Envoy and the Metropolitan Supervisor Military Envoy

He rode to the walled city of the Zhuqiang tribe and the two cities of Shanglu and Tonghe, and ordered the Hou clan and other Zhuqiang tribes to join the Liang.

Of course, in addition to not being blamed in the past, the conditions for attaching the Hou clan and other Zhuqiang tribes are also quite lenient, except for the need to spread the people into the cultivated land for unified grain taxation, only the cavalry of the Zhuqiang tribe is required to accept the moderation of the Longyou Xuanfu Embassy, and can even be exempted from other taxes.

There is also a point, that is, the Longyou Xuanzhi Embassy will directly set up trade points in each Han village and Fanzhai, and the people under the jurisdiction of the counties of Chengzhou, especially the Han people, can directly trade commercial goods with the trade points regardless of their status, and the Qiang tribes are not allowed to interfere arbitrarily.

Although Chengzhou was occupied by Tubo for more than 100 years in the previous dynasty, and the power of the Qiang tribes who surrendered to Tubo was strengthened in Chengzhou, the southwest region of Longxi, including Chengzhou, Wuzhou, Qinzhou and other places, has accepted the rule of the Central Plains Dynasty since the Qin and Han dynasties because of its proximity to the ruling center of the Central Plains Dynasty, and countless Han soldiers and people have moved in to live and reproduce.

In terms of population ratio, at this time, in the Shanglu Valley west of Shangliang Gorge, Han people accounted for more than 70% of the total population, and operated a relatively complete agricultural foundation.

During the occupation of Tibet, the Han people had a low status and suffered from enslavement, and during the Zhaozong period of the previous dynasty, the soldiers and horses of Guanzhong recovered the southwest region of Longxi, mainly using the Zhuqiang tribe to rule these areas, and the Han people were still in a position of enslavement.

Even though the Zhuqiang tribes did not have a tradition of annexing land, the Zhuqiang tribes had a complete monopoly on local commerce and trade, in addition to forcing the Han people to pay grain and maintaining local power, large and small.

At present, the Western Expeditionary Army has taken over the local government, but the direct land tax and taxation cannot relieve the Western Expeditionary Army's food supply problem, which requires further breaking the monopoly of the Zhuqiang tribes on local commerce and trade.

Although the Qiang tribes were subdued and a fairly regular cavalry force was assembled in a short period of time, the larger the cavalry force dominated by the Qiang cavalry, the more difficult it was to control.

Relying only on the narrow rhinoceros station, the supply of materials transported is limited, and the transportation cost is extremely high, and it cannot be controlled from logistics supply, and it is difficult to imagine that the assembled Qiang cavalry has the possibility of being reorganized into the elite of the Liang lineage.

Although Han Qian did not impose too many restrictions on Li Zhihe, and even after entering Longyou, he also decided that Li Zhihe would be responsible for recommending the appointment of local officials, but when he asked Li Zhihe to solve the problem of the suppression and enslavement of the Han people in Longyou as much as possible, he particularly emphasized that the Han people in Longyou must be directly involved in the trade between the Rhino Post and the Longyou region.

In recent years, Han Qian has implemented the fundamental principle of the new system, and in the situation where the space for the development of the productive forces is limited, the main reason is to squeeze the middle rentier strata in every possible way to occupy the space for social production interests through various means.

The advantage of this is not only to give the low-level civilians a sigh of relief, but also to ensure the income of the center; In fact, the interests of the middle rentier class are distributed to both ends as much as possible.

The people have food to wrap their stomachs and clothes to cover their bodies, and the affairs of the military state are nothing but money and food.

No matter how much money and scheming can solve this fundamental problem, no one will be able to turn the tide and resolve the real crisis. And to solve this fundamental problem, let alone Han Qian, with the ability of Shen Yang, Huang Hua and others, they can also govern a country in an orderly manner.

In Daliang, Han Qian broke the monopoly of local forces on grain trade, implemented the policy of unified sales and purchase of grain and other key materials, and has successfully suppressed the price of grain at 600 yuan per stone.

This not only solves the problem of food supply balance within Daliang and the famine problem of the poor at the bottom, but also is extremely important, that is, even if Han Qian decides to leave the grain tax in kind levied by the traditional field tax to the prefecture and county for his own use, the center only needs to use less than one-third of the money in the Jianghuai region to purchase enough military food from the local government to support the consumption of the war.

A very important reason why grain prices in Jianghuai have always remained much higher is that the clan and township lords have almost completely monopolized the local grain trade mainly by annexing land and occupying the vast majority of the surplus grain in the localities.

In fact, the vast majority of the huge profits generated by high grain prices were taken up by old and new landlords, such as clan and village lords.

Since the dynasties, in order to obtain sufficiently cheap, sufficiently sufficient and stable grain, the central center has transported the grain-based taxes levied in various places to the central center and the military garrisons regardless of the cost, which has actually suffered huge losses.

Longyou, especially the three prefectures of Chengwu and Qin in the southwest of Longxi, has abundant rainfall, has a large number of river valleys and dam land between the mountains, after thousands of years of reclamation, has a good agricultural foundation, and there are large pastures to supplement the source of meat, and there is no problem for 20,000 soldiers and horses to obtain sufficient supplies on the spot.

The problem lies in the fact that the population of the nine counties in the three prefectures is less than 200,000, and they can already collect land taxes and oral taxes, and they can only collect 100,000 stone grains and grains, which can only meet less than half of the supply needs of 20,000 soldiers and horses.

The rhinoceros post ancient road is narrow and dangerous, and there are many solid rock cliffs along the way, it is difficult to learn the Songnan plank road in a short period of time to widen regardless of the cost, and at present, it can only bring high value-added commercial goods such as tea, porcelain, medicinal materials, cotton cloth, and salt into the southwest of Longxi for trade.

If the Han people, who are at the lowest level and actually cultivate and produce grain, are not allowed to directly participate in the trade, and continue to sit back and watch the Qiang tribes monopolize the trade, the huge profits will inevitably be taken up by the local tribal forces, and the living conditions of the Han people at the bottom will not be substantially improved, and it will be difficult for the Western Expeditionary Army to make up for the gap in the supply of grain and grass from the profits from commerce and trade.

However, if the Han people could be directly involved in trade, on the one hand, the Western Expeditionary Army could purchase grain and grass cheaply from the trade, and on the one hand, they could purchase more grain, cattle and sheep and other meat by intercepting more profits, and only by truly improving the living conditions of the Han people engaged in agriculture in the local area could they really win the support of the Han people, who accounted for the majority of the population in the southwest of Longxi.

Feng Yi, the military envoy of the Longyou Metropolitan Supervisor, did not impose any restraint or restraint on Li Zhihe in other aspects, but even the old officials of Liangzhou insisted on setting up as many direct trade points as possible in the Shanglu Valley first, and especially emphasized that the Han people should be able to directly trade with grain, and they must not continue to connive at the Zhuqiang tribes to monopolize local trade for convenience or for the sake of seeking to win over the Qiang tribes.

Of course, it should not be possible for the Hou clan and other Qiang tribes to be particularly sensitive to the subtlety of this in the early stage, but Feng Yi emphasized this point to Li Zhihe, Zhang Song, Deng Tai, Dong Zehai, He Yan and others in the military discussion, and he was also worried that the officials under Li Zhihe did not have a clear enough understanding, and would try to save trouble or be bribed by local forces in the later stage of implementation, but did not firmly implement this point.

Zhang Song, Deng Tai, Dong Zehai, He Yan and other generals also know some political affairs more or less, but they were all shocked when they heard Feng Yi explain these truths and the goals behind them at the military meeting, and thought to themselves, no wonder no one has been able to fight the lord of the country over the years, who would have thought that there was such a deep calculation behind this?