On March 13 of the fourth year of the Apocalypse, the Tang Empire's Western Expeditionary Army used the method of reducing the focus outside the city of Yizhou in the northwest to make the Uighur coalition army make a strategic miscalculation, mistakenly believing that it secretly dispatched the main force to the south to participate in the battle with Cao Rengui, so that the main cavalry of the Gaochang Uighurs raided the camp of the Western Expeditionary Army that night, and was ambushed by Wan Yi and his troops, thus turning this confrontation, which had lasted for nearly a month, into a sudden decisive battle. Although the entire battle was full of twists and turns because the commander of the Anxi Uighur cavalry, Jiamu, led his army out of the camp to rescue the Uighurs of Gaochang, and the commander of the Gaochang Uighur front, Hammud, decisively led the elite to survive when his commander Prince Haler had been captured by the Tiance army, broke through the encirclement of the Tiance army, and successfully merged with the Jiamu army, resulting in Wan Yi not being able to complete the battle, but the significance of this battle is still far-reaching. In this counter-attack campaign, after a night of fierce fighting, when Wan Yi began to give the order to withdraw his troops at dawn, the Uighur coalition army's soldiers who had not been annihilated and scattered at this time had basically all withdrawn to Daying and Yizhou City. In fact, after the Uighurs later abandoned the coalition camp outside the city and withdrew to the city of Yizhou, relying on the city walls to resist the victory, the Tiance army was in full strength.

After a night of fierce fighting, Liu Xuan successfully forced the remaining remnants of the Uighurs into the city and turned to the defense.

"Marshal, we have succeeded in this battle." Liu Xuan looked at Wan Yi while chewing bread and looking at the map and said with a smile: "The Seventh Corps successfully took more than 10,000 prisoners from the other side, and there are about 20,000 kills, which is basically a heavy blow to the Jiamu Division. ”

"How's the Modao Battalion?" Wan Yi waved his hand, he was not interested in these, the most important thing in front of him at present was whether the Modao Battalion could still run long distances after continuous fierce battles, after all, the sandbar had reached the most serious moment, and the intelligence sent from Xuan Yingwei showed that Cao Rengui had broken through the restrictions of the city wall several times in the battle a few days ago, if it were not for the critical moment Li San'er led the third brigade of the Flying Eagle Brigade outside the city to return to the city and join hands with the city defense army to counterattack, I was afraid that the sandbar was really dangerous.

"The Modao Battalion has now all returned to the camp, and a total of more than 2,000 people have been killed in this battle, 3,000 people are seriously injured and are being rescued in the field hospital of the group army, and another 3,000 or 4,000 people are slightly injured and are being simply bandaged in the battalion hospital." Liu Xuan knew Wan Yi's plan here, and nodded when he heard this: "I have already informed General Shi Jian that the Modao Battalion will rest for a day, and will run to the sandbar early tomorrow morning to meet the minister." ”

The losses of the Modao Battalion are still within the range of Wan Yi's bearing, and the 50,000-strong Modao Battalion has about 40,000 in addition to the dead and seriously wounded and lightly wounded, so it can be said that the main force is still there. So Wan Yi nodded and said, "You go and inform Shi Jian and ask him to replenish the reserve soldiers immediately, if it is really not possible, you can coordinate the secondment from within the Seventh Corps, maintain the peak combat strength, and rush to the sandbank as quickly as possible." Tell him that the success of Anxi's first battle depends on whether he can get to the sandbank in time. As soon as Wan Yi's words came out, Liu Xuan turned around and immediately made arrangements for the commander's account, and dispatched three thousand elite soldiers from Gao Siji's Seventh Corps to gather the reserve soldiers and send them to Shi Jian, so that the Modao battalion could reply as soon as possible, and at the same time inform Shi Jian that he should open the sandbar no later than tomorrow morning.

At the same time, Liu Xuan's battle briefing also rushed to the sandbank, and then handed it over to Xuan Yingwei to be sent to the Chang'an base camp as quickly as possible. Although the fighting lasted only one night, the counterattack in Illinois had a completely different and far-reaching impact. This battle wiped out a total of nearly 70,000 Uighur coalition troops, plus almost all the army was wiped out and even the Khotanese army with the main general was captured, this battle directly wiped out one-third of the Uighur coalition army's living force, and in fact Liu Xuan's statistics are still inaccurate, the Uighur coalition army lost far more than 100,000 people in this battle, after Jiamu led the army back to Yizhou City and Hamoud to join the count, the faces of the two suddenly collapsed, at this time the army that returned to the city was only 170,000 people, plus the original 50,000 defenders in the city, a total of 220,000 people, It's less than two hundred and fifty thousand. Before the war, the Uighurs numbered more than 350,000, and the Khotanese army of 30,000 was nearly 400,000. In other words, 150,000 people were lost in the First World War, and you must know that the two Uighurs have migrated to Anxi for a hundred years, and the total population of each is only two or three million, and the loss of 150,000 young people at once is already a pain in the bones for the Uighur tribe.

In fact, Liu Xuan forgot about the nearly 20,000 people he had captured because he was in a hurry to report, plus those soldiers who were scattered and missing, the statistics of Jiamu and Hammoud were more real. It's just that compared with Liu Xuan's side who found the captives thinking about whether to take advantage of the retreat of the Uighur combat power to send these people to Guazhou and hand them over to Sima Daoxin, Hammud really wanted to die, and fought at home in the territory of the Gaochang Uighurs, and he was not only defeated in this battle, but also lost nearly 80,000 people, and after returning to the city, the Gaochang Uighur army except for the 30,000 elites he brought out, there were very few people who came back, and they were either surrounded and killed by the Tiance army, or they disappeared without a trace after breaking through, facing the remnants of less than 50,000 defeated generals. Hammoud didn't even care whether Prince Haller was dead or alive, and only thought about how to explain to his Great Khan.

"Now that we're going to go back and ask the Great Khan and them, when will the war with the Tang Dynasty last." Hammoud's mind is naturally empathetic. Although the Anxi Uighur army to which he belonged suffered small losses in this battle, for Jiamu, the hundreds of thousands of cavalry were still at the gate of his camp for only three short hours, and they were beaten so embarrassed by the opponent's 50,000 men that they lost 30,000 horses in vain. But Jiamu is not the kind of soldier who only knows how to fight, and after seeing the huge gap in weapons and tactics with the Tiance Army, he is already thinking about whether there is any point in resisting if this war continues. The Uighurs had such a large population, and although the Anxi Uighurs were not as complete as the Uighurs of Gaochang in this battle, if their men and horses were defeated by the other side, it would be impossible to continue the confrontation with the Tiance army by relying on the remaining troops in the country. Therefore, after counting the battle damage, Jiamu had already sent a message to the royal court, in addition to reporting the battle, he wanted the royal court to reconsider this matter. If you choose to continue the confrontation, then you need to find a way to increase your own strength and learn from Cao Rengui to attract more allies and troops, otherwise, relying on the two Uighurs will definitely not be able to stop the thunderous blow of the Tiance army.

"This matter is not something you and I can decide, I'm just worried now, I will lose the power to attack in the first battle, and I can only watch the Tiance Army calmly dispatch troops south to besiege the Han Jiedu general." Hammoud sighed and said with a wry smile: "Without him being restrained over there, I'm afraid that neither you nor I will be able to deal with Datang alone." ”

On the tower of Yizhou City, as the two supreme commanders watched the Modao battalion in the Tiance army camp begin to move quickly south, and began to be gloomy, worried that the follow-up war would continue to develop in a direction that was unfavorable to their side, no one knew that in the far southwest, a Tiance army suddenly appeared on the border between Khotan and Anxi, and in a very short period of time, it crossed the remaining veins of the Kunlun Mountains between the two and advanced into the territory of Anxi.

This is the third and fifteenth battalions of the Third Corps to which Xue Yang belongs. With lightning speed, the two tribes crossed the mountain barrier and directly entered the southern territory of the Anxi Uighurs, which was formed by the dense rivers of the northern Kunlun Mountains. These oases are scattered around the rivers that flow from the mountains of the Kunlun Mountains, inhabited by the inhabitants of various tribes, although most of the oases are ruled by the Uighurs, but after the raid of the Eagle Brigade in the early stage, these places are now in a state of anarchy, after the loss of Uighur rule, some of these minority tribes have begun to organize their own grassroots power, but after Xue Yang led the army to come, these fledgling regimes disappeared again, In a few days, the 20,000-strong army swept through hundreds of oases, large and small, and went straight to Boxian Town, an important town in the southeast of Anxi.

Boxian Town was called the end of the Sui and Tang dynasties before, it belongs to the subordinates of Longyou Dao, because there are people who have come here in the past dynasties, before the king of Shanshan also led more than 4,000 households to take refuge here, and then although it has been notified by the Tubo and Uighurs, the town of Boxian has nourished the surrounding fertile land with the snow water flowing out of the Kunlun Mountains, and it belongs to the necessary place of the Southern Silk Road, with developed agriculture and prosperous commerce. After Cao Rengui retreated to Anxi, he came to Boxian Town to take root, and all the families of the officers and soldiers before him were settled in Boxian Town, relying on the local fertile land, Boxian Town is actually a veritable granary in the southwest of Anxi, which is also the biggest reason why Cao Rengui was able to stabilize his army. It can be said that before the recovery of the sandbank, Boxian Town was Cao Rengui's base camp and his foundation. Therefore, when Xue Yang led the army to the city of Boxian Town, all the soldiers and civilians left behind by Cao Rengui in Boxian Town were shocked, and they did not expect that a Tiance army would suddenly appear in the hinterland of Anxi. Moreover, at this time, there were not many troops in Boxian Town at all, and there were almost no old, weak, sick or disabled.

The third battalion didn't even bother to do the temptation and drove directly to the city, and after a few rounds of guns, the soldiers entered the city directly without bloodshed, and took down all the people of the Cao Rengui family led by him, and all the joints arranged by Cao Rengui in the city were also controlled by the Xuanying Guard, who turned from dark to light, and the Xuanying Guard, who turned from dark to light, quickly cooperated with the army to stabilize the situation in Boxian Town, and assisted the army to take over the entire city.

"Leave a thousand people and Xuanyingwei to unite to stabilize Boxian Town, and then send a message to Khotan, and let Zhang Sheng send troops into Boxian Town if necessary. Let's not stop and continue east. After Xue Yang stayed at Cao Rengui's residence in Boxian Town for less than an hour, he said to Li Yang, who had just come over to find him: "Because the Flying Eagle Brigade completely disrupted all the areas east of Boxian Town in the early stage, the news of our occupation of Boxian Town will not reach Cao Rengui's ears so quickly, so although we have eliminated Cao Rengui's lair, the supporting effect on the sandbar is not so obvious. ”

"I'd rather Cao Rengui know sooner now." Li Yang shook his head and said with a wry smile: "It seems that we must go east along the Silk Road non-stop, and break through Shicheng and Datun City along the way and then arrive at Shicheng." In this way, we can really cut off Cao Rengui's back road and help Shazhou break the current situation. ”

"I estimate that the marshal over there in Yizhou has also sent troops south, and now he must set off immediately, otherwise, once there is a gap in the encirclement on our side, then Cao Rengui will definitely come towards Boxian Town regardless of it, and at that time, we will definitely not be able to stop Cao Rengui by fighting a field battle, and they will not be able to rush directly into Khotan at that time." Xue Yang said this: "Go and inform the troops to set off immediately and hand over Boxian Town to Xuan Yingwei." Xue Yang's move later proved to be indeed prescient, Cao Rengui led the remnants of his troops and horses after being defeated by the Modao battalion, and as soon as he left the sandbank, he was attacked by Xue Yang, who had already rushed to Shicheng, and finally the whole army collapsed.

No one knew about Xue Yang's actions at this time, because the Xuanying Guard of Boxian Town was busy taking over Boxian Town with a thousand troops, and the marching speed of the Third Corps was notoriously fast, so by the time the news came out from Xuanyingwei's side the next day, Xue Yang and they had basically appeared in Shicheng Town, which was basically equal to the speed of Xuanyingwei transmitting information.

At the same time as Xue Yang's rapid march, the news from Yizhou finally relieved Wang Houchun, after Su Xiaohu arrived at the sandbank, the guerrilla mission outside the city was handed over to the headquarters of the Flying Eagle Brigade, and the third brigade entered the city to take over the task of defending the city of the National Guard. Although Cao Rengui once led his army into the city these days, with Wang Houchun doing his best to use explosives bags and artillery to defend, Cao Rengui still did not make significant progress when Li San'er and them entered the city. Moreover, Wang Houchun also took advantage of the opportunity of the soaring combat power of the Flying Eagle Brigade after entering the city in a timely manner to launch a wave of counterattacks. Using the king of soldiers to defend the city did make Cao Rengui feel helpless.

And when Wang Houchun received the express report from Yizhou that the Modao Battalion had gone south, he quickly instructed Su Xiaohu to find a way to drag Cao Rengui outside the city, and changed the deployment to let Li San'er in the city not exert all his strength, but to let Cao Rengui see hope, so as to win time for the arrival of the Modao Battalion.

However, what Wang Houchun didn't know at this time was that his old subordinate Xue Yang was actually already in Cao Rengui's lair, and he didn't know that Cao Rengui was completely defeated in the end in front of this flying horse that traveled thousands of miles through thousands of mountains and rivers, and he himself was shot dead by the soldiers of the Third Corps.

However, at this time, Cao Rengui didn't know that his lair had been raided, and a huge encirclement had surrounded him in the middle, and he was still discussing with Shi Jianjiao how to strengthen the siege of the city in the next step, so as to take the sandbar as soon as possible. And Shi Jianjiao, who lost his last capital, originally wanted to go back to Yizhou to ask Li Cunqiao for his guilt, but after Cao Rengui's persuasion, he decided to stay and take revenge. What he didn't know was that he decided not to go, but he was really doomed to never go again.