Yang Chong stood on Huoyi City, looking at the direction of the Bird Mouse Valley, the blue dome and green water, and the wild geese flying south; On the hills outside the city, there is no dazzling color of spring, a quiet, a faint sadness. The maple leaves are like fire, and the yellow ginkgo biloba is like a small flower, which does not shrink with the falling leaves; There were some wild rice paddies swaying in the wasteland, and occasionally a few foraging pheasants came running, fluttering and pecking back and forth, ignoring the farmers walking on the field paths.

Wang Ji and the others accompanied Yang Chong left and right, pointing out the layout around Huoyi City. Although Li Shimin used his troops strangely and broke through the gaps of Liang De and Yang Shiluo, the 50,000 army stopped in Lingshi, and Ying Yi, the defender of the Hexi Army, had the legacy of Hao Zhao during the Three Kingdoms period, and fought with Li Shimin for two days with 3,000 elite soldiers, and finally detonated the gunpowder retreat buried under Lingshi City, killing and wounding more than 4,000 Tang troops.

Ying Yi retreated to the pass of the Bird Mouse Valley, and defended the danger for four consecutive days, waiting for Song Jingang's reinforcements; Shi Wanbao made a detour from Han Xinling, encountered Liu Yun, lost three battles and three defeats, and could only return to Lingshi County by the same route. At present, Liang De and Yang Shiluo have recaptured Pingyao, Yujuluo has led 30,000 cavalry to aid Lingshi County, and Han Shige is fighting fiercely with Tang general Zhang Changxun in Xiangyuan; What Yang Chong considered was whether to go to the Bird Mouse Valley.

Yang Chong finally retracted his gaze and gave an order: "The hundred cavalry team stays, Yuwen Chengdu and Su Dingfang lead the headquarters of six thousand cavalry to reinforce the Bird Mouse Valley, and Wudu'er is responsible for the defense of Huoyi City." ”

Yuwen Chengdu and Su Dingfang were overjoyed, they were finally able to go into battle to kill the enemy, the two hurriedly thanked them, got up and commanded the army to set off; Yang Chong even sent out the guards around him, and everyone understood that Yang Chong was determined to win Li Shimin. Wu Duan'er still had 10,000 horse infantry troops in his hands, and immediately began to arrange defenses in Huoyi to prevent the Tang army and Turkic cavalry from mixing in.

The battle of Lingshi was completely white-hot, Li Shimin personally led 20,000 cavalry to fight against Yujuluo outside the thousand-mile path, and ordered Shi Wanbao to lead 5,000 Xuanjia cavalry to chisel through the cavalry formation of the Hexi Army, and then the troops launched a fierce attack in three ways, but the last 1,000 heavy cavalry left by Yujuluo overwhelmed the Chinese army, and Yuan Qiang stopped the second attack of the Xuanjia Army. As soon as the banner of the Yujuluo army fought, the chaotic cavalry quickly turned their formation and reflexively killed.

The war drums sounded in unison, the horns were in the sky, although the Hexi Army was mainly mixed with Hu, but the weapons were sharp, the armor was complete, and the momentum of the charge was not under the Tang Army; Li Shimin understands that Yujuluo is cunning and cunning, and the final change of formation is a means to target the Xuanjia cavalry. Li Shimin erected his horse lance, shouted wildly, and personally commanded five hundred guards to join the battle, and the Tang army stabilized its position in Li Shimin's shouts, and the momentum was like a steel knife, and it cut back to the cavalry of the Hexi Army.

The battle lasted for three hours, and Li Shimin couldn't remember how many times he charged, but he felt that the casualties of the 5,000 Xuanjia cavalry were close to half, so he could be regarded as killing the 1,000 heavy armored cavalry on the opposite side; Yuan Keng took the remaining dozens of cavalry and retreated into the formation of the Hexi Army with the assistance of the cavalry on both wings. Li Shiminxiao got the most critical moment, and shouted: "With me invincible, the Tang army will win, and with me invincible, the Tang army will win." ”

More than 2,000 Xuanjia troops shouted at the same time, "With me invincible, the Tang army will win." ", followed Li Shimin from the middle to kill all the way, and went straight to Yujuluo's handsome banner; Under the desperate death of the Tang army, the cavalry of the Hexi army could not resist, and after the fierce general Zhang Wansui was picked off the horse by Shi Wanbao, the Hexi army was defeated and retreated. Li Shimin rushed left and right in the formation, getting closer and closer to Yujuluo's handsome banner; Hou Junji saw that the hundreds of cavalry in front of Yu Juluo did not get on the horse, and hurriedly grabbed Li Shimin's war horse with one hand, and let Li Mengwei lead five hundred horsemen to cross over.

There was a bang, it was really a trap, and a dense number of crossbow arrows were shot from the opposite side, and the half-heavy armor of the Xuanjia cavalry was completely ineffective, unable to stop the strength and sharpness of the crossbow arrows, and Li Mengwei and the others all fell in the rain of arrows in a blink of an eye. Li Shimin was full of courage, grabbed the moment when the other party reloaded the arrow, and led the Xuanjia army to rush over desperately; Yujuluo Shuaiqi turned around and left, but the crossbowmen under the war horse still did not retreat, and hurried to shoot the last row of crossbow arrows.

More than 300 Xuanjia cavalry and guards were planted from their horses, and Li Shimin was hit by an arrow in his left arm; Hou Junji took the lead, grabbed ahead of Li Shimin, cut down three soldiers of the Hexi Army, and led the guards to quickly kill the crossbowmen of the Hexi Army. The Hexi army was defeated and retreated, Shi Wanbao led the cavalry to chase after him, Xue Shui thought about it and yelled that it was not good, Liu Shili hurriedly asked what happened; Xue Shui shouted: "Quickly tell General Shi to retreat, poor Kou Mo chases, Yujuluo fights against us, there are no 30,000 cavalry, there are ambushes on the road." ”

When Liu Shili heard this, he hurriedly ordered someone to pass the order, but unfortunately he was still a step late, Shi Wanbao chased for thirty miles, Zhu Xieque and Zhen Zhai'er each led three thousand cavalry to suddenly kill from the oblique spur, Yu Juluo personally went into battle, and Yuan Keng was killed in two ways, the Tang army was caught off guard, Shi Wanbao fought out of the encirclement, and Dugu Yanyun led two thousand cavalry to break off, all of them were killed.

Only then did Li Shimin know that Yujuluo had brought 35,000 horsemen and 2,000 crossbowmen, close to twice his own strength, although he killed 14,000 cavalry on the other side, the loss of the Tang army also reached the number of 9,000 cavalry, and the most important thing was that the Xuanjia cavalry, which had followed him since Taiyuan, killed a full 3,000 people. Xue Cheng looked at Lang Zhong to treat Li Shimin's injuries, and said with a sigh: "Yang Chong is a war horse with a lot of armor, so deliberately fighting with us is a trap to let King Qin kill Shuai." ”

Shi Wanbao said with red eyes: "I must cut off the heads of Zhu Xieque and Zhen Zhai'er." ”

Li Shimin smiled instead: "Yujuluo, like Yang Chong, is cautious in his use of soldiers, and today is a lesson, but we still got five thousand war horses." Ji Hu was too worried, and immediately arranged for someone to go to the Hexi Army to spread rumors, saying that Yu Juluo deliberately wanted Ji Hu's soldiers to die in battle and consume the strength of the Tang Army. ”

Xue was overjoyed, and immediately refused to wait and go carefully, but the reaction he got was disappointing. The Yujuluo military camp was tightly guarded, and idlers could not approach, followed by Yujuluo, after the Yujuluo camp, he did not fight for three days, and seemed to be determined to spend it with Li Shimin. After the fall of Pingyao in the north, the grain and grass of the Tang army were cut off, and they could only rely on Liaozhou to transport grain and grass, but after Han Shige won the battle and Zhang Changxun retreated to Xiangyuan County, the grain and grass were also broken, and the Tang army could not hold on.

Li Shimin was considering whether to fight or retreat, the eldest grandson Wuji was defeated in Tongjun Sichuan, Su Dingfang led the 3,000 cavalry of his headquarters as the vanguard at night, took advantage of the fog to secretly go out of the Bird Mouse Valley, marched to the Tongjun Sichuan Tang Army garrison one mile away, attacked on horseback, and killed a thousand soldiers guarding the village. Han Xinling was cut off, and the eldest grandson Wuji had to send troops to attack Tongjun Chuan, wanting to recapture the camp, but Su Dingfang was extremely brave and broke Du Junqiu's 5,000 people.

(End of chapter)