A Tang army of about 300 cavalry, is surrounded by two carriages to the snow mountain, they are followed by a long team of mules and horses, this is with the horse bandits to exchange money and hostages of the team, the carriage is naturally Li Fei Shouyu's mother, Li Fei Shouyu sat in the back carriage, the carriage was bumpy, he leaned on the wall of the car, through the window to look at the undulating distant mountains, the sharpness in his eyes is gone, but there is more gloom, he does not know how many times he has walked this road, he knows every stone and tree on the road, But at this time, he felt very strange, as if this was an endless night road, and he couldn't see the future, nor could he see the light, but he clearly knew that the future must be a cliff, he was a little tired, tired of killing, and tired of robbing, but they had no circuit, no choice, and sooner or later they would fall into the abyss under the cliff.

Yesterday, the words of the governor of Shazhou seemed to be a torch, in the long night, he saw a glimmer of light, and also smelled a glimmer of hope, 'Return to the imperial court, the past is not to blame,' Li Fei Shouyu shook his head self-deprecatingly, how could the verbal promise of a small governor offset the blood debt on their hands, this line of light is so weak and unreliable.

The convoy was already close to Daxue Mountain, Li Fei Shouyu sat up straight, his eyes looked at the mountain on the east side of Daxue Mountain, his eyes began to become hot, he saw that the small tree on the boulder in the mountain pass was gone, that is to say, the eldest brother had made all the preparations, Li Fei Shouyu couldn't help laughing, he was laughing at the clumsy strategy of the new governor of Shazhou, and actually wanted to break the city wall to lure himself over, last time he had his own plan to divert the tiger from the mountain, but he escaped by chance, this time let him taste what it means to be empty of people and money, If he wants to take the opportunity to take his lair, he can go with him, as soon as he leaves, Shazhou will inevitably be empty, and he will turn his hand to serve his lair.

The convoy had already entered the area of the Great Snow Mountain, and when it reached an open field, a horse on the opposite side rushed over, and the person on the horse waved his hands and shouted loudly: "The leader of my family has an order, so I will exchange it here, and I ask you to send someone to negotiate." ”

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Just less than half an hour after the Tang army team that went to exchange left Dunhuang City, another Tang army quietly wandered to the southeast along the sweet spring water, no war drums, no flags, no impassioned oaths, in the scorching sun, like a black torrent, iron blue armor shining in the sun, this is a Tang army of 3,000 people, their goal is the horse bandit nest in Qingyang Mountain, but the speed of the march is not fast, it seems to be waiting for what?

Li Qing on horseback had a stern gaze, his lips were stretched in a straight line, his expression was extremely serious, the casual smile of the past disappeared on his face at the moment, he looked at the endless Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, thousands of miles of plains, there was no place for people, but in his opinion, it seemed that behind the snow peak that flashed with blue-purple light, a mighty Tubo cavalry was killing Shazhou.

Li Qing's eyes couldn't help flashing a trace of worry, when it was not dawn, he got an urgent report from the scouts, the scout team may have found traces of the Tubo army, but did not see anyone, judging from the number of horses, there are about 100 people, it may be scouts, if it is really a Tubo scout, it means that the Tubo army is about to appear, but the city wall of Dunhuang County has not been completely repaired, how can it resist, not to mention that there is a group of horse bandits around him, internal and external troubles, it seems that they all broke out at the same moment.

"Yangming, I don't think it's necessarily a Tibetan scout, it may also be a border outpost, after all, it's the border of Tibet."

The deputy general Li Siye saw Li Qingxin's worries, and urged him to come to comfort him, Li Siye has been in the frontier for a long time, and he knows the laws of Tubo better, he smiled and said: "If it is a scout, there will inevitably be a Tubo brigade behind, and most of the Tubo Koubian choose autumn, when the autumn is high and the horses are fat, and the rice is ripe, but now it is the height of summer, I think it is unlikely." ”

When Li Qing heard this, he also smiled bitterly and said: "I don't want this to be the case, otherwise the bandits here have not been suppressed, and the enemy is coming over there, with thousands of people in our area, how can we fight on two fronts?" ”

Li Siye smiled heartily, "A small number of horse bandits, a rabble, why should Yang Ming take it to heart, besides, didn't you still have more than a thousand people in Shazhou?" Don't worry, as for the unknown enemy, Xiang Xuan has already gone to support, whether there is a Tubo army or not will have an answer soon. ”

"That's right! With Zhang Xun and 1,200 Doulu troops here, and the veteran Tian Zhen, what else do I have to worry about. ”

Thinking of this, Li Qing's waist straightened, his spirit perked up, and his face returned to his usual self-confidence, he turned around and laughed loudly at the soldiers: "We have the mighty and invincible Modao army, the bow and crossbow team with excellent archery, and the invincible iron cavalry, our Tang army has never been afraid of any opponent!" ”

"What the Governor said is that we have never lost a battle!" Dozens of veterans responded confidently and excitedly.

A war horse galloped past the front of the team, shouting all the way, and the voice gradually faded away, "Everyone stay in formation, don't fall behind." ”

Compared with the vast and flat landform from the Daxue Mountain, the mountains along the Ganquanshui are undulating, the ravines are vertical and horizontal, and the large areas of dense forests are invisible at a glance, which is very easy to hide and dodge.

Walked for half an hour, crossed a steep cliff, here, the sweet spring water fell from the cliff, forming a waterfall ten zhang high, the sound shook the sky, came out three miles away, the air was white and mist, the trees on both sides of the bank were unusually lush, verdant and dripping, the Tang army carefully went up a slope, the war horse was obedient, after this waterfall, the team began to enter the Tibetan boundary, this kind of boundary between the two countries does not have any legal documents, just use the more dangerous terrain as a natural dividing line, of course, There will never be a dividing line between the ambitions of the Tibetan people.

Went on again

, The sun has gradually reached the sky, the river valley is unusually hot, as if it is, the river has become gentle and smooth here, Li Qing turned around and called the scout sent by Duan Xiushi to report the news, and pointed with a whip: "Is it here that your captain broke up with you?" ”

The scout who reported the news looked carefully at the surrounding environment, and then pointed to the pile of horse manure next to the boulder and said, "Returning to the capital governor to ask, is this exactly what it is?" ”

"Not bad! Don't jump to conclusions, you must see that you are willing to give up, and you are a qualified scout. ”

Li Qing also flicked the pile of horse manure with a wooden stick, nodded, turned to Bai Xiaode and said, "What is the name of this scout captain, you can reuse him in the future." ”

Bai Xiaode said with a smile: "This person came to join the army as a jinshi, and Gao Dashuai also valued him a lot, but he was too angry with his book, and ordered him to go to the soldier to roll, but he was also angry, and he was promoted to captain in just two years. ”

"Duan Xiushi!"

Li Qing was shocked again, he had heard the story of this person since he was a child, and he didn't expect to appear under his eyelids, he was still a small captain, although his heart was shocked, but after a long period of twists and turns, his city gradually became deep, and he only smiled faintly and said: "I only said that he is a qualified captain, as for what his background is, how good he is, wait until I see it in person." ”

As soon as the words fell, a personal soldier suddenly pointed to the other side of the river and shouted: "Governor, look, there is a situation over there!" ”

When Li Qing heard the sound, he saw more than a hundred small black dots in the distance, and he was quickly rushing towards him, "Follow me!" With a wave of his hand, Bai Xiaode also led hundreds of cavalry to cross the river, and the dense horse's hooves splashed a large splash and quickly greeted him.

After a while, the black dot approached, but it was more than a hundred cavalry, led by Xiang Xuan, the commander of Guoyi, who seemed to be going to pick up the soldiers, and there were more than a dozen wounded Tang soldiers between them, only to see Bai Xiaode come forward and ask a few words, and immediately brought them back.

"That's not right! There must be a Tibetan army, and there will be no less. Li Qing's eyes gradually narrowed, and he guessed the seriousness of the matter only from Bai Xiaode's slightly frightened face.

The cavalry quickly rushed back, Bai Xiaode urged the horse to Li Qing, took a breath, calmed down, and said in a low voice: "I did find the Tubo cavalry, about 2,000 people, but there is no handsome banner, it is estimated that it is only the front army." ”

Li Qing nodded silently, the matter has come, and there is no way to hide, at this time, more than a dozen injured scouts were brought over, and Xiang Xuan, the Guoyi Governor who went to pick them up, stepped forward to report, "Back to the Governor, we found them twenty miles away, and we didn't find the Tubo pursuers behind." ”

"Thank you for your hard work!"

Li Qing praised them a few words, and then rushed to see Duan Xiushi's situation, he even had two knives on his back, the thick armor was also split, and the blood stained the robes inside, fifty of them were first flanked by the Tubo scouts, and then surrounded by two thousand Tubo front troops, fifty people finally only rushed out of twelve, all of them were wounded, Duan Xiushi struggled to maintain a sense of sanity, and when he saw the Tang army who came to respond, he couldn't hold it anymore after explaining the situation, and fainted.

"Hurry up and send them back to Shazhou, and tell the military doctor that if I can't save Duan Xiushi's life, I will want his head!"

After Li Qing finished the order, he turned around and came to Li Siye to discuss the matter, Li Siye sighed, was silent for a moment and said: "If the front army of the Tubo army is 2,000 people, then the enemy who is attacking this time is at least 8,000, and we only have 3,000 people, it is indeed a severe test!" Yang Ming, let the horse bandits put it aside for the time being! Let's get through this catastrophe. ”

After hesitating for a moment, he said again: "It's just that this is the territory of Tubo, and if a fierce battle breaks out, it is easy for Tubo to find an excuse, saying that our Tang Dynasty provokes first, and the imperial court may trouble us." ”

This is indeed a problem, if the battle starts in Tubo, it will become an invasion of the Tang Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty will be politically passive, and Li Linfu will not let himself go, but if he retreats to Shazhou, not to mention the impact on morale, the fatal thing is that the city wall is far from being repaired, how to resist the locust-like Tubo army, thinking of this, Li Qing was secretly a little annoyed, he knew that the city wall should not be demolished, but how could he have expected that the Tubo army would attack in midsummer.

Suddenly, a thought flashed in his mind, Tubo came to attack Shazhou, if he couldn't resist it, Shazhou was in danger, then would the imperial court transfer Anxi or Hexi army or even the Longyou army to support, then would Tubo's attack on Shazhou just be a temptation, the purpose was to disrupt the deployment of troops and materials in the imperial court, and even attack the west with the east. ”

The more he thought about it, the more likely it was that it was meaningless for 8,000 men to attack Shazhou, and the troops invested in a campaign in Tubo were at least 50,000 to 100,000, which showed that its main target was by no means Shazhou.

Li Qing immediately said decisively: "You can't return to Shazhou, you must intercept the Tubo army here, and I will bear all the consequences and responsibilities!" ””

He looked at the vast expanses of dense forests and undulating mountains in the distance, and seemed to hear the rumbling sound of horses' hooves, and secretly thought in his heart: "Two thousand forward troops, I wonder if they will know that there is a Tang army of three thousand people here?" Li Qing shook his head, "I don't know, as long as it is properly arranged, it may not be impossible to win more with less." ”

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The Tang Dynasty Longyou Jiedu envoy and Hexi Jiedu envoy are all served by Huangfu Weiming, but its long station in Longyou Prefecture, in order to transfer Huangfu Weiming's strategic focus to Hexi, so, Tubo Zanpu Chide Zuzan carefully planned a risky move, sneak attack on Shazhou, this is the game he began to arrange since the beginning of the year, he through the Qiang people in Shazhou pro-Tubo, but also found the strangeness of the Shazhou Doulu army, the strength of the army was significantly reduced, although he did not know the reason, but he keenly felt that this must be related to Huangfu Weiming, if Shazhou was taken, the Tang Dynasty temporarily changed generals, Then his Longyou plan will be successful

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At the beginning of July, two months before he was ready to start attacking the Tang Dynasty, the sneak attack on the expedition to Shazhou quietly kicked off, and Tubo sent a total of 8,000 troops, the main commander was the famous general Iron Blade Xinuoluo, and his front army of 2,000 people, all of them were light horses, led by the new general of Tubo, Lun Zang.

He was about thirty years old, and like other Tibetans, his skin was roughened by the intense ultraviolet rays of the Tibetan Plateau, and he was not tall, but unusually strong, with broad shoulders and a thick back, and the sturdy chain mail draped over his body turned the whole person into a cube.

A hand-to-hand encounter in the early morning eliminated a scout team of the Tang Army, but after all, more than a dozen of them ran away, and these scouts still had people to answer, which made him hesitate a little, the original seamless sneak attack plan actually had a loophole, what was going on?

It's a pity that there are no Tang army prisoners, otherwise you can ask for clues.

The Tang army slipped through the net means that their plan is exposed, this is an extremely dilemma, huge risks and huge benefits together, on crying and hiding for a while can not make up his mind, he found a relatively square boulder to sit cross-legged, this is his habit when he encounters difficulties, he casually used mud to outline the distance on the boulder, from here to Shazhou about one hundred and twenty miles, at this time it is already afternoon, if there are scouts with the fastest horse speed back to report, then the Tang army brigade will arrive tomorrow morning at the earliest, and Zampu said that the Tang army in Shazhou is less than two thousand, Even if there are soldiers outside, they will rush back to defend the city, this is the common sense of soldiers, everyone knows that defending the city is more advantageous than field warfare,

He stood up and looked up at the sky, the sun was already in the west, if he hurried up, he would be able to rush to Shazhou tonight and catch the Tang army off guard.

The two thousand Tibetan light horsemen quickly formed a formation under the loud order of Lun Weeping Zang, and then shot like a straight long arrow in the northwest direction.

Rushing out of twenty miles in one breath, the climate on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is changing rapidly, just now it was still the scorching sun, in the blink of an eye it was already cloudy, the low clouds were surging, flying overhead, the distant clouds and mountains were churning violently, and a storm was gradually approaching.

The 2,000 Tibetan cavalry galloped like arrows, crossing one high and low hill after another, passing through one dense forest after another, with soft and thick grass mats under their feet, and in front of them was the Ganquanshui River Valley, along which the scouts reported that they could reach Dunhuang County directly.

The sky was covered with dark clouds, and it was already pitch black in the distance, and the mountain peaks were engulfed by black clouds, as if some demon was about to descend on the world.

The time was still only in the afternoon, but the night had already arrived in advance over the sweet spring water, and the river valley was gloomy, but the Tubo army seemed to be blind to all this, and the long horse legs were galloping, forward! Forward! The sound of horses' hooves beating on the empty river beach was like a pack of hungry wolves pounced on a distant target.

But no one noticed the abnormality, the water level of the sweet spring water seemed to be the dry season, and now it was the middle of summer with abundant rainfall, about a few miles away, several scouts who led the way in front of them found the abnormality, and shouted in shock: "General, this water level is much shallower than last night, there is a problem!" ”

Before he could give an order, there was a muffled thunder on the ground, and a black line under the miserable dark clouds was clearly visible a hundred paces away, reflecting a strange bright color.

The river roared violently, and the dark black waves stirred up were more than two zhang high, and before the Tubo army could react, the river swallowed hundreds of cavalry in one gulp, frightened, frightened, and scattered, and the remaining thousand cavalry shouted wildly, trampled on each other, and fled to the shore like a landslide, the river bank was high and slippery, and the war horses were blocked together, and they could not jump up with their strength at all.

But at this moment, from the dense forests on both sides of the river bank erupted from the earth-shattering shouts, hundreds of Tang soldiers rushed out, holding the Fuyuan crossbow coldly, an officer gave an order, dense arrows roared like a cover of the sky, hundreds of cavalry rushed to the shore were shot on their backs, and fell back into the river.

Another shout of killing blew with the strong wind, and the 1,000 Tang cavalry who were ambushed in an ambush one mile upstream finally arrived, and the long lance hit directly, and the horizontal knife flew over, and finally the remaining more than 300 Tubo troops had no will to fight, and fled one after another.

A few war horses slowly appeared on the hills in the distance, and a lightning bolt swept above their heads, tearing open the heavy black curtain, and instantly reflected the earth into bright white, only to see that on the war horse, Li Qingzheng, the commander of the Tang Army, stared at the battlefield in the river valley with cold eyes, this was a battle on one side, the power of nature and the strong bow and crossbow of the Anxi army annihilated all the two thousand Tubo front troops, and finally only more than 100 remnants of the soldiers [died and escaped, disappeared in the day and night.

"None of the wounded soldiers remained, all of them were killed and thrown into the river."

This is Li Qing's last order, after that, he raised his head and stared into the distance, the storm had turned direction, heading east, the sky as thick as ink gradually began to thin, turning gray-black, blown away by the wind, and the snow-capped mountains that had trembled in the black clouds showed sapphire-like light again, and under the snow-capped mountains, another larger main force of Tubo was sweeping towards this side.

Li Qing's face became extremely grim, in that battle, he would have no chance to use, and he could only use the Tang Dynasty's war knife to defend the honor of the Tang Army.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath as what awaited him ahead was what would be.