"Your Majesty, the plan of the senior brother's side has been decided, and it has been decided to raid Jiaohe City, the garrison of the Uighur royal court of Gaochang, by means of encirclement and reinforcement, and then attract the main Uighur force to come to the aid so as to move and annihilate the enemy on the way." Hu Xiaosi came early in the morning to block Li Xuanqing's door, and it seems that it has become a habit. So Li Xuanqing didn't pay attention to this guy's skinless and faceless, and beckoned him to sit in the Champs Pavilion at the door of the Qianqiu Palace, while eating the breakfast that Qiaoxi brought up with smoke, while reading the latest information handed over by the other party, because Xuan Yingwei's information transmission and the General Staff are not a system, so the speed of general information on Xuan Yingwei's side is much faster than the normal channels of the General Staff, so similar to this kind of decision of the front-line commander will be transmitted through the General Staff if conditions permit, However, if there is an action plan for Xuan Yingwei's participation, Xuan Yingwei's side will send it back to the headquarters as soon as possible, so because Zhao Si participated in the formulation of the action plan on Wan Yi's side, Hu Xiaosi's side is faster than the General Staff side, which is also the reason why he already knows the news from the front line, and the General Staff side has not yet come to report. However, Li Xuanqing was not surprised by Wan Yi's decision, and the formal rifle gradually spread to most of the Western Expeditionary Army, and the modern sense of movement warfare plus encirclement and annihilation warfare also began to have the possibility of real implementation. With the support of the strong firepower of the Tiance Army, the Western Expeditionary Army has the ability to attack reinforcements in separate ways while besieging the city, so as to completely control the initiative of the Northwest Campaign in its own hands. If the Uighur royal court was chosen as the target city, then both the Gaochang Uighurs who were faced with a life-and-death decision and the Anxi Uighurs would consciously or unconsciously mobilize their main forces around Jiaohe City to fight a decisive battle with the Tiance army. If the operation is good, not only can the final decisive battle site be placed in Jiaohe City, but also can mobilize powerful troops and horses to ambush various units along the way at the interval between the reinforcements coming and going, so as to break the opponent's four-sided encirclement plan before the final decisive battle, and truly achieve both attacking and saving it, and being able to encircle the point and send reinforcements, and annihilate the enemy in the movement.

Li Xuanqing nodded and put the information down, and then said, "Can you Xuanyingwei keep up with the intelligence processing after the battle is launched?" Maybe the war opportunities over there are changing rapidly, you have to explain Zhao Si well, and if necessary, you can transfer Qin Kong from Khotan to the headquarters of the Western Expeditionary Army to assist Zhao Si. "This kind of large-scale war and rapid mobilization of troops and horses requires very precise intelligence support, and even requires Xuan Yingwei to invest a lot of manpower to probe and transmit, and also take into account the timeliness of intelligence.

"Your Majesty, don't worry, when I received the message from Zhao Si last night, I had already passed it as quickly as possible, and since Zhao Si sent back this information, he must have known it." Hu Xiaosi nodded, he took a lot of energy to pay attention to the war in the northwest, in addition to the deployment of Xuanyingwei in various places before the integration of the headquarters, and the deployment of elite forces from the country to the imperial border, Hu Xiaosi also accurately differentiated the principles of intelligence organization and intelligence transmission at all levels of Xuanyingwei, and implemented the essence of the information acquisition, investigation and transmission process brought by Li Xuanqing from later generations one by one. The northwest side was almost entirely handed over to Zhao Si and Qin Kong, and with Biao Zi being transferred to Tibet to preside over the intelligence work in Tibet, the current Xuanyingwei intelligence organization has begun to extend to all sides of the empire, and it can be said that Hu Xiaosi can understand in detail every move of the national organization outside the enemy's border thousands of miles away in Chang'an.

"Then there's no problem, how are you doing in Tibet and the northeast?" Li Xuanqing hurriedly drank a bowl of porridge and stood up and said: "When Senior Brother solves the main Uighur force, the General Staff will start the campaign in Tibet and the Northeast at the same time, and strive to solve these two places within the year, complete the true unification of the empire, and then repair for a year, ready to open a new era, and bring the empire into a new era of territorial expansion." ”

"Chen Fan in the northeast is already ready and waiting for the time in the northwest, and our Xuan Yingwei has also investigated all the forces in the Sanhan region in detail, including the distribution of their forces and national strength." Hu Xiaosi said with a smile: "Actually, it is still good for us after Zheng and Zhu Youlun go to Sanhan, at least they destroyed Zhen Xuan and Tamluo, and the caravan of the Xu family went to Sanhan before and had contact with them, and the two started a business." In the past two years, I have also been working hard to digest the internal rebel forces, and I think that when we take Goryeo in the north, Zheng will make the right choice in the face of absolute strength. ”

Zhen Xuan was actually a force on the Korean Peninsula that split off from Baekje, but at this time it did not become independent, but existed as an independent force of the Goryeo Dynasty. At this time, the Korean Peninsula was actually divided into three families, the north was Goryeo, the southern region was divided into two, the east was Silla, and the west was Hou Baekje, that is, the area where Zhen Xuan's department was entrenched, plus the Tamna on the southern islands together constituted the large and small forces of the Korean Peninsula, and Zhu Youlun and Zheng were able to destroy Zhen Xuan and Tamna in just four years, which is not bad, after all, the Korean Peninsula does not have much ruling foundation.

"Then let Chen Fan start to prepare, let them discuss the specific time of the war with the General Staff, and then they can consider letting the Beiyang Fleet assist them." Li Xuanqing commanded. He is not worried about the northeast, the most worried is still in the Tibetan area, where it is a real plateau, even if in the past two years, the Tiance Army has specially drawn troops for combat training in the plateau area, and has also trained professional troops such as mountain battalions, but in that harsh and complex area, large-scale operations still do not let him rest assured, elite troops can not mean that ordinary troops can, and the most important thing is that the output of Tibetan areas is too small, and it will not be of much benefit to the imperial economy after it is defeated. However, it is still necessary to invest a lot of manpower and material resources every year to maintain the rule. However, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is another area that has to be taken for the Central Plains, this is a sword hanging over the head of the Central Plains Dynasty, almost the same as the northern grasslands, if it cannot be incorporated into its own territory and rule for a long time, then once the Central Plains decline, they will become the biggest threat to the Central Plains. However, the solution of the Tibetan area must wait for stability in the northwest.

When Li Xuanqing, Hu Xiaosi and even all the high-level officials of the entire Tang Dynasty were staring at the northwest, Wan Yi's side also officially launched his Gaochang strategy plan, Chai Jia and Shi Jian joined forces to implement the plan to attack Yizhou, because it was a direct force under the headquarters, so almost half of the artillery of the Western Expeditionary Army was concentrated outside Yizhou City at this time.

The powerful artillery fire destroyed the city defense of Yizhou almost instantly, originally Yizhou City did not have the Central Plains side with a strong and towering city wall cover, most of the northwest region is an earthen city, similar to the Central Plains side of the masonry structure of the city wall is only a handful, so just five rounds of shelling, the city wall was blown up in a mess, Jiamu and Hammoud originally intended to rely on the city wall to hold on to the desire to quickly fail, under the cover of more than 200 artillery, the Modao battalion took the lead in approaching the city wall, and rushed into the city after blowing up the city wall, The Uighur army in the city began to storm strongly.

"Marshal, it seems that we have a high opinion of the Uighur defense, once the Modao battalion enters the city, the Uighurs are afraid that they will not be able to hold out for a day." After the Modao battalion entered the city, the large-scale artillery bombardment gradually stopped, but the dense gunfire and the sound of grenade explosions in the city began to suddenly become violent, which meant that the Modao battalion had launched a fierce battle on the front line, and the Chai Jia division also began to detour to the northeast and began to open a second front. Liu Xuan and Wan Yi stood side by side outside the camp and looked at the broken walls of Yizhou City and said with a smile, "The firepower of our Western Expeditionary Army has been unprecedentedly strengthened, and now we have more than 400 artillery pieces, which is almost unimaginable. ”

Wan Yi nodded, there are almost four artillery battalions concentrated on the side of the Western Expeditionary Army, not counting the two mechanical crossbow battalions, and the artillery belonging to the entire group army command is enough to crush a city like Yizhou in a moment. However, Wan Yi was not complacent, although there were many artillery, but it could not stand the consumption, even if the railway had been repaired through the Tiger Hill Pass, and then came to Ganzhou, the pressure of logistics still made him dare not let go of his hands and feet, unless the railway could be repaired to the front line of Shazhou, otherwise the logistics and transportation that plagued the war in the northwest could never be solved. Thinking of this, Wan Yi suddenly asked, "I heard that Jiaohe City, as the seat of the royal court of the Gaochang Uighurs, gathered the wealth that the Gaochang Uighurs had looted over the past hundred years, right?" ”

Liu Xuan was stunned for a moment, and then understood that Wan Yi was probably worried that the war in the northwest would drag on for too long and delay the domestic economic construction, so he nodded and said: "Jiaohe City is indeed the residence of the royal court, and there are almost all the high-level Uighurs of Gaochang in it, and because Jiaohe City is located in the southwest of Daze, with abundant water and grass, it is a rare land of fish and rice in the northwest, and it is an important town along the Silk Road, so it can be said that the essence of the entire Gaochang is in Jiaohe City." Is the marshal planning to support a cabinet? ”

"Not intended, but definitely." Wan Yi said with a smile: "We have been fighting for so long, and we have spent countless amounts of money and food, if we can't achieve the goal of feeding the war with war, then the country will definitely not be able to bear it." After finishing speaking, he looked at a violent explosion in the northeast corner of Yizhou, and knew that Chai Jia's side must have broken through, so he didn't say much: "Go back and tell Chai Jia and Shi Jian that all the gold and silver treasures and the grain and grass in the treasury of Jiaohe City will be brought back to me, and it will be up to them whether our Western Expeditionary Army can fight for a long time." After finishing speaking, he no longer paid attention to the battle situation in Yizhou City, and turned around and walked into the camp.

After a whole day of fierce fighting in Yizhou, the Modao Battalion and the 11th Corps successfully took the entire Yizhou city defense, and Jiamu led more than 40,000 men and horses from his headquarters to break through to the west, and was pursued all the way by Tuoba Siji, who was waiting for him next to him. However, Hamoud, the commander of the Uighur front, was accidentally wounded and captured, and took about 20,000 Uighurs with him to surrender en masse. In this battle, the 100,000 people of the Modao Battalion and the 11th Corps attacked, killed and wounded more than 30,000 people, and paid nearly 3,000 casualties. In the street fighting, the Uighurs were not good at defending and were infinitely magnified, if it were not for the fact that the remaining troops in Yizhou were almost all elite troops, I was afraid that the casualties of the Tiance army would be smaller.

After Yizhou was successfully taken, the Seventh Corps also quietly set off under the leadership of Gao Siji, and began to make a roundabout movement towards Jiaohe City along the grassland in the north of Yizhou. In fact, the Shatuo people in the Luntai grassland here are not called Shatuo, but Turkic people. The Luntai Turks, including Li Keyong, are actually one of the ten Turkic surnames, and they are actually inextricably linked with the descendants of the nine surnames of Zhaowu, and even most of them are deep-eyed and high-nosed races, but the branch used by Li Ke was given the surname Li when he pacified the Anshi Rebellion. It is precisely because they have a connection with the surname Zhaowu Jiu that Li Xuanqing plans to try to imitate the treatment of the descendants of the surname Zhaowu Jiu and recover it as the basis for the Tang Dynasty to rule Anxi in the northwest.

On April 17, the fourth year of the Apocalypse, it was the moment when the spring of all things in the northwest came, and the Western Expeditionary Army directly under the Ma Modao Battalion and the 11th Corps plus the artillery unit stepped on the freshly melted snow and began to move towards the direction of Xizhou and Jiaohe City.

However, at this time, Liu Xuan was in the rear army and chatted with the captured Hammud and Halle, Haller was frightened by Zhao Si early in the morning, and at this moment he felt a deep fear of the Tiance Army from the bottom of his heart, so after seeing that his old subordinate Hammud was also captured, the last bit of strange thought in his heart was quickly extinguished, and he chose to follow the Tiance Army very decisively, and this is the reason why Liu Xuan came to him today, planning to persuade Hamed to surrender. There were many Uighurs in the northwest, and even if they defeated two Uighurs, it would be impossible to kill all the ordinary people, so these ordinary people were bound to be included in the rule of the Tang Dynasty after the war. Therefore, Wan Yi and Tuoba Sizhi in the rear decided to find a way to rebel against some of the Uighurs, so that they could serve as a bridge for ordinary Uighurs to submit to the Tang Dynasty, and by the way, the campaign in the northwest also needed these few tribes to assist the Tang army. Because whether it is Li Xuanqing, the General Staff or Wan Yi, these generals of the Northwest Front, all deeply feel that even if they recover all the lost territory of Anxi, they are afraid that they still need to conflict with the previous Tianfang Sect world, plus the Third Corps has fought against the Protector and the Saffar Dynasty before, if the Samanid Dynasty is counted, then the war in the Northwest Region will not end like this, and these forces will definitely have strong hostility towards the strong entry of the Tang Dynasty into Anxi. So Wan Yi thought about it and planned to let Liu Xuan try to persuade Hammud, who had performed well in the ambush before, to see if he could persuade him to surrender.

"I wonder where you're going now?" After Liu Xuan's intention was finished, Hammoud was silent for a while and suddenly asked.

"Naturally, it's Jiaohe City." Liu Xuan didn't mean to deceive the other party, he said the destination of this trip very casually, and then said solemnly: "I think you should be able to guess the reaction of your Great Khan after our army went to Jiaohe City, right?" I'm coming to you not so much to give you a chance to submit to the Tang Dynasty, but to give you Uighurs a chance, the Tang Dynasty has no suspense about recovering Anxi, if you don't want the Uighurs to be hit by the empire because of your actions today, then it's best to think about what I said today. The Uighurs had a good relationship with our Anxi army, so we did not list you as a scope that must be completely eliminated, and your subordinates and descendants had the opportunity to live on an equal footing with the Han people as citizens of the Tang Dynasty, instead of being treated as enemies, either slaughtered, or forever expelled from the land and becoming rootless people who have lost their homes. ”

Liu Xuan's words shocked Hammud, and even Haller's eyes changed suddenly, obviously Liu Xuan's words really reached their hearts.