After receiving Xia Xingmei's report that "the Song people returned to the city", Ye Luyi was taken aback.

With the example of the easy success of the surprise attack on the mouth of the Great Wall and the easy capture of the two walled forts of the Song people, he believed that Xia Xingmei should easily defeat the Song people's troops and horses with superior forces and then besiege Baozhou. It was an unexpected joy for the Song people to come out of Baozhou, as long as they could take Baozhou, then the battle behind would be easy to fight. He can leave a group of men and horses, and then attack along the road to Kaifeng in Mancheng, Wangdu, Dingzhou, and Zhenzhou, as long as he captures one or two cities or defeats a few Song troops, the Southern Dynasty will inevitably be shaken, then the Great Liao can open his mouth, and the Southern Dynasty dares to refuse; In addition, he could also use Baozhou as a base to copy Sanguan from the rear to the east, join forces with the army commanded by Yelu Gaoten, the commander of Nanjing, who attacked from Xiongzhou and Bazhou, and then attack Mozhou and Yingzhou.

Because the diversion of the Yellow River has caused a large area of Yellow Flood, blocking the connection between Mozhou and Yingzhou and other regions. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as long as the hundreds of thousands of troops of the Liao army will be in one place, I don't believe that this area will not be able to be taken.

This area was called the "old land of Guannan" by the Liao State, and the last time the Liao State blackmailed the Song Dynasty, the excuse was to ask the Great Song Dynasty to return this area. Once the Liao army occupies this area, whether it is occupied for a long time or used to bargain with the Southern Dynasties, it will have an absolute advantage over the Southern Dynasties. This is also the reason why Yeluyi first handed over most of the elite in his hands to Xia Xingmei.

But I didn't expect that the 30,000 Song troops would return to Baozhou under the siege of the Liao army, how can this be good?

Siege of the city, right? The casualties are too great and distressing. Don't attack the city, right? The heart is restless.

Xiao Weixin, the privy deputy envoy of the Northern Court of the supervising army, saw that Ye Luyi hesitated first, so he said: "I don't know what is the difficulty of deployment? ”

Yi Xian said: "If there is such a strong Song army in Baozhou, no matter which direction we go, they will threaten the flank of our army. But if you continue to attack this Song army, you can see if you look at Suicheng, how can this Song people's city be so easy to fight? And once dragged under the city by the Song people, there is no energy to find an opportunity to defeat the Song people. ”

Xiao Weixin said: "This matter is not difficult. The Song army in Baozhou went out of the city to the north, and it must have come to the rescue of Suicheng. Now seeing that our army is strong, naturally we dare not take another half step. However, if we pretend to go south to Wangdu and Dingzhou, the Song people will definitely gather troops to rescue, and maybe we will also mobilize the Song army in Baozhou. We only set up suspicious soldiers in Wangdu and Dingzhou, and after the Song army in Baozhou left the city, we lured the Song army to a suitable place and mobilized a large army to ambush it. I don't know what the deployment thinks? ”

Yi Xian said: "What a plan. So do as you say. Then he ordered: "The generals will immediately follow me to Baozhou!" ”

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At dawn the next day, Li Buqi and Guo Kui went up to the city wall. At this time, the morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the Liao cavalry could already be seen flashing out of the fog from time to time.

Guo Kui said with a calm face: "The Liao people have too many horses, and our army scouts will fight with them as soon as they go out, and now I don't know where the Liao people are and what they are going to do." ”

Li Buqi smiled and said, "Don't worry about deployment. If the Liao people want to attack the city, they can't ask for it. But the Liao people want to leave calmly, and we don't let the Liao people get their wish. We have dragged tens of thousands of Liao troops for a day, and we are still coming and going freely in the heavy siege of the Liao, so it seems that the Liao people are nothing more than that. This battle is not about how many Liao people are killed, but about fighting a political battle. Next, as long as we fight steadily, do not let the Liao people take advantage of the opportunity, let the court have the confidence to refuse the extortion of the Liao people, and let the Liao people know that they can't get any benefits from our Great Song Dynasty, this battle will be won. ”

Guo Kui said: "I'm only worried about whether the prince can stop the Liao." Although Wang Zinan was born in Jiangmen, he had never personally experienced the battle formation, and in the face of more than 100,000 Liao troops, he hoped that there would be no mistakes. ”

Li Buqi has long heard that Guo Kui is talented, but he is also arrogant. When he discussed the strategy with Guo Kui after he came to Baozhou, he could feel Guo Kui's disdain for him at first, but his official position was high, and Guo Kui didn't dare to show it. However, the deployment of Wang Kechen to Zhen, Ding, Qi, and Zhao obviously showed contempt.

In this regard, Li Buqi just smiled. Not to mention that Guo Kui's qualifications are still shallow, whether it is safe for him to deploy the emperor in the four states of Zhen, Ding, Qi and Zhao, just to say that Guo Kui is a military general, he is not as suitable as Wang Kechen to sit in Zhenzhou. Wang Kechen is a civil official, if Han Qi and Xia Zhu have any disorderly lives, Wang Kechen can go back to the war and then fight again. But a military general like Guo Kui may not have the courage to be hard-topped.

As for Wang Kechen's military talents, Li Buqi really didn't dare to pack the ticket, but he still felt that it was more suitable for Wang Kechen to command Jingtai and Zhang Kang.

He didn't have much contact with Wang Kechen, but he could detect that this person was very shrewd, both very assertive and tactful of a rich son. What's even more rare is that this person is very good at listening to other people's opinions.

In several conversations, Li Buqi was able to perceive that although Wang Kechen had taken the road of the imperial examination, he may have been influenced by his family studies and knew a lot about military affairs, especially ancient and modern war examples, and he also had a lot of insights in his analysis. Although this is only on paper, Jing Tai and Zhang Kang, who he commanded, and Di Qingke, who could accept his command, all had actual combat experience. In particular, Di Qing and Zhang Kang have been active on the front line of the Song-Xia War as military attachés in recent years, and they can be said to have rich experience.

Therefore, under the command of Wang Kechen, Jingtai and Zhang Kang, who were both Confucian students, as long as Wang Kechen himself did not die, he could listen to the opinions of Di Qing, Jingtai and Zhang Kang, and there was no problem in blocking the Liao people.

But if Guo Kui is asked to command Jingtai and Zhang Kang, not to mention that Guo Kui is not as good as Wang Kechen can listen to other people's opinions, just let the martial artist command the two Confucian students, it will definitely be fun. Zhang Kang may not be good, but it is difficult to say whether Jingtai, who was born in Jinshi, can cooperate with Guo Kui. Moreover, whether the arrogant Guo Kui can cooperate with Di Qing seamlessly, Li is not sure.

Li Buqi would not tell Guo Kui about this matter in front of Guo Kui, so he diverted the topic: "No matter how the prince responds, let's try to help him disperse the enemy's forces first." After the fog cleared, I took the cavalry and part of the infantry out of the city, swept the surrounding Liao cavalry, and explored the movements of the Liao people. After understanding the movements of the Liao people, it is not too late to make further plans. ”

Guo Kui saw that Li Buqi had made up his mind, and he didn't persuade him, but only reminded: "Patrol the border and fight steadily, and you must not fall into the ambush of the Liao." ”

Li Buqi sighed: Being surrounded in the city is to give up the initiative to the Liao, and he can only be careful after going out, but in order to pave the way for the later plans, he must go out of the city.

When the fog cleared, the drums in the city sounded loudly, and the crossbowmen of the Zhenwu army took the lead and left the city in a group. When the Liao rangers saw the Song army marching out of the city, they hurriedly ran away, only monitoring from a distance.

After the crossbowmen established a defense outside the city gate, the cavalry of the Zhenwu army came out in small teams and rushed towards the Liao rangers.

These Liao cavalry were used to shield the Song army's situational awareness of the battlefield and harass them, and when they saw the cavalry in a tight formation rushing towards them, they did not intend to be tough at all, and immediately ran away unhurriedly. Most of these cavalry were light cavalry, only carrying simple weapons such as bows and knives, and the men and horses were not armored or only wore leather armor, which must have run faster than the heavily armed Song army, so they didn't care about the chase of the Zhenwu cavalry at all, and they also bent their bows and arrows to shoot reflexively during the jogging.

Seeing this scene, the cavalry of the Zhenwu Army no longer pursued, but only blocked the path of the Liao people from afar. Under the city, Li Buqi organized his troops, with 5,000 crossbowmen in the rear and cavalry in front, and slowly marched north. A thousand Gaoyangguan cavalry went out of the city from the other direction, divided into two roads and went around to sweep away the cavalry of the Liao people on a raiding mission.

Yeluyi first arranged to pull out the camp before dawn, and not long after the pioneer left, the scouts in the direction of Baozhou ran back to report that the Song people had gone out of the city and came here.

Yeluyi hurriedly asked, "How many people are there in the Song Dynasty?" ”

"The Song people are tightly guarded, and I can't find out when I probe the horse."

Yixian couldn't help but say to himself: "What are the Song people going to do? Do you want to attack us? ”

Xiao Weixin said: "It doesn't matter what he does." We had a lot of soldiers, and the Song people dared to stay away from the city, so we ate them and saved a lot of hands and feet. ”

Yixian nodded and immediately ordered the camp to be suspended, and sent two troops and horses to go far around the city of Baozhou. As long as the Song army left Baozhou City, these two groups of men and horses would cut off the Song people's retreat, and he would personally command the army to press and eat the Song people. This time he was going to personally command the battle.

However, left and right, the horses all reported that the Song army was moving slowly, and every time there was a wood, they had to be carefully explored, but the cavalry of the squad continued to advance and cut through several layers of interception. This is also reasonable, the Great Song Dynasty planted trees in Hebei to control the Liao cavalry, so there are many woods in Hebei, Yi Xian thought that if he was a general of the Song army, he would also worry about the ambush, so he waited patiently. However, when the sun was up, Tanma reported that the Song army had stopped and did not take another step.

The Song army was six miles away from the city, and this distance made Yixian very embarrassed.

"What are the Song people doing?" Yi Xian frowned and immediately ordered: "Let Tanma approach the Song people brigade to see what is going on!" ”

With this order, the Liao scouts had to get close to the Song army, and a series of clashes broke out between the cavalry of the two sides. Although the cavalry bow of the Liao people had a range of nearly 200 paces, it was not lethal to the Song soldiers and horses in armor at this distance, and the steel crossbows fired by the Song cavalry on the horses could easily tear apart the leather armor of the Liao, so the Liao rangers suffered a small loss in the shooting.

At noon, Yelu Yixian received a report from Tanma, saying that the Song army had turned around and retreated to Baozhou. This time, the Liao people also saw clearly that there were less than 5,000 Song people out of the city.

Yeluyi couldn't help but be annoyed: "Is this a trick on the old man?" ”