Although Li Nan did not personally drive the expedition this time, he sent the shapeshifter Wa Er and the female fox Mary, the deputy commander of the Imperial Forest Army, who was responsible for protecting him, to the battlefield of Western Xia.

Both of them had the ability to control beasts and birds, and the generals of the Imperial Army, in order to prevent the Tanguts from invading the territory of the Empire, also transferred the two women to Hohhot and Yan'an respectively.

With the flying eagles released by the two of them soaring in the sky, the two armies that the Western Xia intended to plunder were repeatedly attacked, and after losing some of their men and horses, they became aware of the imperial army's reconnaissance methods.

After being recognized by the Tanguts, the generals of the imperial army stationed in the two big cities of Yan'an and Hohhot withdrew the teams responsible for the ambush along the way, preparing to rely on these two fortified cities to fight a hard-fought battle with the Tanguts.

In fact, when they arrived here, whether it was Li Zhizhong who came out of Montenegro, or the generals of the Western Xia Army who rushed over from the direction of Xiping Mansion, they were all facing a problem now.

The Imperial Army had already discovered the intentions of the Tanguts, and the two cities of Hohhot and Yan'an were bound to fight, so they were all considering whether they should abandon attacking these two places and attack the rest of the empire and cities.

The Western Xia army from Xiping Mansion still had a choice, because there were Qingyang Mansion and Pingliang Mansion as alternative targets near Yan'an Mansion, and Li Zhizhong's area was only Hohhot and a city.

Li Zhizhong, who was helpless, finally led his troops to the city of Hohhot, although he was repeatedly attacked along the way, the morale and morale of the army were seriously frustrated, and he lost nearly 3,000 soldiers and horses, but there were still more than 40,000 elites left.

The city of Hohhot was called Fengzhou during the Liao period, and after the Jurchens destroyed the Liao State, they also continued this title.

Fengzhou has always been an important military town, and it is also one of the densely populated and prosperous prefectures in Liaojin.

After the empire took Fengzhou from the Jinren, Li Nan took the initiative to change it to Hohhot, which is the 'blue city' in Mongolian.

This time, the main battlefield of Western Xia and the empire was not in Hohhot, nor in the area of Yan'anfu, but in Taiyuan and Lanzhou, where heavy troops were gathered.

Therefore, the commanders of the major corps of the Imperial Northern Route Army did not come at all, and Zhang Shuye only sent Shi En, as well as all the officers and soldiers of the Third Division of the Eighth Army Corps, a total of 10,000 people, to support Hohhot.

The city of Hohhot, after the reconstruction and repair of the imperial engineers, has now changed greatly, the 15-meter-high reinforced concrete city wall is impregnable, plus the various artillery on the city wall, it can be called impregnable.

Although he only had 10,000 regular troops of the Third Division and less than 10,000 patrols in the city, Shi En was confident that he would hold the city and try his best to annihilate the attacking Western Xia soldiers.

The terrain where Hohhot is located is actually very favorable for cavalry warfare, because this prairie is the most suitable for galloping horses.

Before coming to the city, Li Zhizhong glanced at the situation of the battlefield and sighed secretly, because the city in front of him was too difficult to fight.

Not counting the high city walls, as well as the trenches crisscrossing the outside of the city, as well as the metal that cannot be kicked by the war horses, and other defensive means, it is really like a tiger's den in Longtan.

Although Li Zhizhong didn't know what defenses there were in the city, just by virtue of what appeared in front of him, he knew that there would inevitably be a fierce battle today.

The Tangut people were different from the Jin and Mongols who only relied on cavalry and archery, because the Tangut had often fought with the Song state in the past, so they had a lot of experience in whether they were charging on horseback or dismounting to attack cities.

As a qualified commander, Li Zhizhong naturally would not let his own elite take the lead in attacking, but let the prisoners in the army take the lead, wanting to see what means the imperial army had.

Seeing thousands of cavalry rushing over at a rapid pace, the imperial officers of all levels who stood at the head of the city and commanded shouted at the defending soldiers: "Ready!" Don't shoot until the enemy arrives at the rejection! ”

"Boom, boom, boom......"

The first to fire on the walls were the Imperial artillery, and these cannons placed on the walls were obviously much larger in caliber, longer range, and more powerful than the two-wheeled guns that could be moved.

The cannons were not rigidly fixed to the city walls, but were mounted on a heavy metal disc base, and the artillerymen operating the guns could shake the mechanism to make the base turn in 360 rows.

Although the power of these cannons is very large, what reassures Li Zhizhong is that there are not many of them.

In fact, this is also inevitable, because Hohhot is not a border city, nor is it a fortress-type military city, but only a warehouse for transshipment of materials and grain.

With the desperate charge of the Western Xia prisoners, the distance continued to close, and at present, there were only a few dozen cannons firing in the city, and because of the range, the imperial soldiers on the city walls did not shoot.

These prisoners belonged to the consumables of the Tangut people, but they would not go up to die in vain, and immediately performed a perfect horsemanship for the imperial soldiers in the city.

The cavalry of about 3,000 prisoners came to the trenches dug by the Imperial sappers in the ground, and instead of urging their horses to leap over, they made a sharp turn and galloped away on both sides by grazing the edge of the pit.

Shi En and the other generals of the empire stood at the head of the city and saw more clearly through binoculars, it turned out that these Western Xia prisoners were carrying two sacks of sackcloth on their horses, and when they came to the edge of the pit, as soon as they pulled the rope tied to the bag, a large amount of earth spilled down, and happened to fall in the trench.

3,000 people are not many when they are fighting in a large army, but as the saying goes, '1,000 people are up to the sky, and 10,000 people are boundless!' ’

In this way, the prisoners used cloth bags filled with dirt on horseback, and gradually filled in the trenches dug by the imperial sappers outside the city.

When a general of the Imperial Army saw this scene, he couldn't help but say to Shi En: "Division commander! If this continues, then these trenches will be useless at all! ”

"I know." Shi En nodded, and said confidently: "Our purpose is to cripple this Western Xia army, not to scare them away, so let them fill it in, lest they be frightened away and go to other places to plunder." ”

Shi En's words made sense, and besides, he was also the highest-ranking general in Hohhot, so the imperial army continued to maintain a posture of standing still.

After three thousand Xixia death row prisoners were busy, the ditches in front of the city were filled, and the next thing they had to deal with was the heavy steel rejection horses.

Since ancient times, the obstacles of the horse rejection are made of wood, because trees are found in most places, and they can be used locally, and steel has always been a scarce material in various countries, so few countries and forces will create steel horses.