The Shuofang army set off, and the banner covered the sun for hundreds of miles.

Like Xue Shao, 100,000 men threw their homes and longings behind them and rushed to the bitter cold and dangerous northwest battlefield.

It was autumn, and the march was easier than the rainy days of winter and spring. But when the eagle flies in September, it is also the traditional hunting season for the nomads of the north. Throughout the summer, the abundant aquatic plants have raised their cattle, sheep and horses to the point of fattening and strong, and it is enough to recuperate.

Winter is coming, and they have to prepare for the winter.

Historically, the tea, silk and grain after the autumn harvest in the Central Plains are the favorite of the Hu people in the desert, and the delicate beauties are used to warm the quilt is a fairy-like enjoyment.

But they don't have any of that.

As a result, war was as important to the steppe nomads as it was to breathe, drink and eat from birth. Therefore, almost from the beginning of written records, the wars between the farming peoples of the Central Plains and the nomads in the desert have never stopped. Most of the Central Plains people who lived in the land relied on the city to take a defensive position, while the nomads made full use of their unique cavalry power advantage, and most of them adopted the strategy of guerrilla warfare to harass the frontier, mainly looting goods and people.

On the way to the march, Xue Shao was thinking about these all the way.

There are many origins and truths in it, and many people in the world can understand it well. But there are some that no one knows except Xue Shao. Because he has a soul in his body from a thousand years later, he knows better than others how much disaster this group of Turkic people will bring to the Central Plains Datang.

The "timing" of their rebellion was really cleverly chosen!

Because of the death of Emperor Gaozong, there was a problem with the alternation of monarchy in the Tang Dynasty, and the struggle for the highest power within the Tang Dynasty fell into unprecedented chaos. The internal problems have not yet been sorted out, so how can the Tang Dynasty have the energy to manage vassals and deal with foreign enemies?

Previously, Datang had also hastily and wrongly beheaded Fu Nian, which aroused the righteous indignation of the grassland people and their distrust of Datang, coupled with the "mass foundation" laid by the previous two rebellions, which made it easier for the rebels to coalesce. In addition, the Tang Dynasty has been fighting frequently in recent years, the military and civilian strength have shown fatigue, the treasury is becoming increasingly empty, and the power of prevention and impeachment against the Turks has naturally weakened unprecedentedly.

The rise and fall of Datang and Turkic is like a person's own immune system has a problem, and the slightest virus infection is easy to get sick, and it is a serious illness!

To put it in an inappropriate way, this rebellion of Ashina Gu Dulu can be described as "the right time and place".

Before the war began, the first thing Xue Shao had to do was to recognize friend and foe. When encouraging his soldiers, he boldly declared that he would beat the Turks to their knees and beg for mercy. But he himself is very sober in his heart, and the current Tang Army is no longer the grandeur and majesty of Pei Gong when he was in charge. On the contrary, the strength of the Turks has been greatly enhanced. In less than three months after the uprising, they were already able to mobilize 100,000 men to besiege a small place in Fengzhou, and besiege the city to send reinforcements for the sacking of Helong Horse Farm.

Judging by the instincts of a commander-in-chief, this will certainly not be their entire force. At the very least, they will keep more than half of their troops as backup and backup and guard the nest. In other words, it is conservatively estimated that the Turks should now have the strength of an army of 200,000 people!

Moreover, the current leader of the Turkic rebels, Ashina Gu Dulu, has learned from the experience and lessons of his predecessors, and has become extremely cautious, deceitful and cunning. Judging from his series of military deployments on the frontier, this is no longer the group of Turkic rebels who only knew how to set fires, loot and kill ignorantly, and had constant civil strife. They are well aware of the reality of the Tang Dynasty border, they have a strict organization and detailed military plans, they use the strange tactics of besieging the city to send reinforcements, attacking the east and the west, and diverting the tiger from the mountain, and they also used the battle example of "surprise attack on the black sand" that Xue Shao once used to move to the hinterland of the Tang River and Long, and they have made enough 180,000 war horses to loot at one time.

There is nothing else on the prairie, men who can ride horses, shoot arrows, and want to make a fortune on the battlefield are all over the ground. This batch of war horses can at least allow Ashina to arm more than 100,000 cavalry!

300,000 Turkic cavalry, such a huge enemy group has never been encountered by Pei Gong before.

In the previous two Turkic rebellions, Pei Gong took command and went out to fight against the Turks with an army of 300,000, just like Lao Tzu teaching his underage son, he directly fell to the ground and took off his pants and screamed - mud and prostrate and Fu Nian, basically there is no room to compete.

Now Xue Shao's situation is very different. That rebel son has grown up to be young and strong, while Lao Tzu is old and sick!

The situation is very not optimistic!

Xue Shao felt more and more that the little shoes that Pei Yan wore for himself this time were really despicable enough. He actually ignored the military crisis with his private abolition of the public as he did last time in the Fu Nian incident.

Once, Xue Shao's impression of Pei Yan was not bad enough, and he had the experience of reconciling and cooperating with him. But now, he has been completely disappointed in Pei Yan. In private, he hated to kill him immediately; For the public, under the leadership of such a selfish and shallow chief prime minister, let alone any glory, it would be good if it didn't go all the way to the dark!

——Instead of letting Pei Yan bent on selfish selfishness, it is better to let Wu Zetian come forward to take over the power!

Xue Shao believes that as a politician, Wu Zetian's sense of responsibility and ideological consciousness are definitely higher than Pei Yan's. No matter how cruel Wu Zetian is to her political enemies, no matter how ruthless her methods of seizing power are, at least she will not take the affairs of the military as a child's play, and she will not abolish the major affairs of the country and the nation because of private fighting.

This is the clearest idea in Xue Shao's heart now!

……

After the army set out, it did not go fast because of the lack of horses.

The grain and grass team escorted by the deputy general Li Duozuo could still see the city of Chang'an, and the scouts led by Wu Ming and Guo An had galloped to a hundred miles away. The battle reports sent by Fengzhou and Xiazhou were vague and not enough to judge the reality of the enemy. Xue Shao had high hopes for the scouts, hoping that they would be able to find out the military information they needed as soon as possible.

The army marched all the way north, and five days later it was close to the border of Jingzhou, the closest war-stricken area to Chang'an, where the Turks had sacked three horse farms and robbed tens of thousands of horses a few days earlier.

The scouts sent by Xue Shao finally reported the news, and at the same time brought back two people that Xue Shao hadn't expected, Di Renjie and Helian Guchuan!

The scout said that Di Gong had something important to report to the general.

Xue Shao received Di Renjie, and when he saw that he was covered in smoke and coyote, he was embarrassed and thin, and asked in surprise: "Why is Di Gong here, and he is still such a wolf?" ”

"It's hard to put into words!" Di Renjie smiled bitterly, "Since the last time I took over the case of the general's assassination, Di Mou did not dare to slack off and has been strictly pursuing it. Fortunately, the general allowed me to clear the customs documents, and Di followed the clues all the way to the border of Fengzhou. Just as he was about to make a gain, the Turkic rebels came to invade the border, and Cui Zhi, the governor of Fengzhou, was defeated, and Di was almost killed by the rebels. Fortunately, Helian Guchuan and several other strong men fought to protect them all the way, and Di was able to retreat to Jingzhou. Unexpectedly, before they could take a breath, the Turkic rebels dared to enter the hinterland of Guanlong and plunder the horse farm in Jingzhou! …… After several times of rebellion, Di failed to capture the thief but ended up in such a wolf situation, he is really ashamed! ”

"Encountering such a military disaster is definitely not something that can be reversed by personal strength, and Di Gong doesn't have to blame himself." Xue Shao asked, "I heard Di Gong say that he didn't capture the thief leader—presumably, Di Gong already knows who the thief leader is?" ”

Di Renjie took a deep breath, "I'm afraid this is the only gain from Di's trip!" ”

Xue Shao frowned lightly and nodded, "It seems that it is indeed inseparable from the Turkic rebels." ”

"That's right." Di Renjie said, "The general will definitely fight with this person on this Northern Expedition." ”

"Who is he?"

"Asid 61 Yuanzhen." Di Renjie said, "This person was once a chief under the Governor's Mansion, and was later detained for breaking the law. Ashina Gu Dulu was the first to think of him before the incident, so he did not hesitate to take the risk to rescue this person from the prison of the Governor's Mansion, and then worship him as the mastermind and military advisor, and listen to him! ”

"Asted Yuanzhen!" Xue Shao took a deep breath, "When I was in Luoyang, I heard this person's name!" ”

"General, you must be careful of this person." Di Renjie said, "Although this person is from a Turkic Asid nobleman, he grew up in the Central Plains since he was a child, and he knows everything about the Central Plains. In addition, he used to be an official in the Shan Yu Prefecture and some border states and counties, and he was also quite familiar with the border defense and national politics of the Tang Dynasty, and he could even speak a very fluent official dialect in the capital, which made it difficult for people in the two capitals to distinguish his accent. After being worshiped by Ashina Gu Dulu as the mastermind, the first plan he issued was to go to Guanzhong to spy on you, the general. If the general is not in charge of the army, he will always be watching; If the general shows signs of commanding the army, he will assassinate the general! - In short, Yuan Zhen regarded the general as the number one enemy of the Turks! ”

"He thinks of me." Xue Shao smiled and said, "And then?" ”

Di Renjie said: "At that time, the strength of the Turkic rebels was not strong, but they hid in the depths of the desert and secretly recruited troops to expand their strength. At this time, the imperial court sent an envoy to Youzhou to comfort the tribes of the grassland. Yuan Zhen conspired to let Gu Dulu deceive Youzhou to preserve his strength. Taking advantage of the unpreparedness of Youzhou, Gu Dulu killed the pass and fled to Mobei, and at the same time coerced tens of thousands of grassland pawns. At the same time, they robbed ......"

Speaking of this, Di Renjie stopped abruptly with an embarrassed expression.

Di Gong said it was okay. It's all my liver and gall brothers here, and there's nothing to hide. Xue Shao said, "Actually, if you don't say it, I also know roughly - they killed the leader of the imperial court, Zuo Fengchen, the general of Weilang, Liu Mian, and also kidnapped Ashina Aiyan. ”

"That's right!" Di Renjie let out a long sigh and said, "Li Wenji, the governor of Youzhou, has always been shrewd and cautious, but he didn't expect to be calculated by Yuan Zhen this time. After Gu Dulu fled north, he gathered his troops in Dujin Mountain, and began to recruit rebels under the banner of Ai Yan, gathering more than 100,000 people in less than a month. Turkic rebels, so far became the climate. At this time, Yuan Zhen once again conspired, so that Gu Dulu did not have to rush to war with the Tang Dynasty, but hid the main force deep in the north of the desert so that the Tang Dynasty could not reach it. Then, they launched an offensive against Tiele, surnamed Mobei. Under Yuan Zhen's plan, Gu Dulu quickly defeated the nine surnamed Tiele, not only did he have no worries, but also won countless cattle and sheep military funds and recruited more soldiers to join the group, and the Turkic rebels grew unprecedentedly. At this time, it coincided with the extraordinary period of the death of the first emperor of the Tang Dynasty, and there was no time to take care of anything else. Gu Dulu and Yuan Zhen seized the opportunity to annex the various tribes on the grassland and expand aggressively, and soon gathered nearly 200,000 rebels under their command. Then they established the Turkic puppet khanate in Dujinshan, Gu Dulu falsely claimed to be the khan, Yuan Zhen was worshiped as the mastermind, and was named 'Apodagan' to lead the soldiers and horses. ”

"Subsequently, they launched a war of aggression against Datang, right?" Xue Shao said.

"Yes." Di Renjie said, "Yuan Zhen is too familiar with the border of the Tang Dynasty, and he has formulated a lot of tricky and strange tactics in response to our troop deployment and the current situation of the imperial court, completely confusing our border guards, and inducing our troops to come and go to rescue Ying Ying is tired or falls into ambush and surrounding, and is completely left to be beaten." Within three months, they won 12 victories in a row, and they also ransacked our Longyou horse herding supervisor, robbing 180,000 war horses! ——This Yuan Zhen is like the most dangerous henchman of my Datang! ”

Xue Shao took a deep breath and nodded slowly, "It will also be what I, Xue, am about to encounter, a fierce rival of life and death!" ”