Xiping County, Shanzhou.

"What? Zhao Ziliang is here? Ben Shuai was about to send someone to find him to come to discuss matters, but he didn't expect that he himself would come first, so go and invite him in! Huangfu Weiming, who was discussing with his generals in the hall of the Shanzhou Jiedu Embassy, was overjoyed after listening to the report of the small school.

After the colonel left, the judge Zhang Boji smiled and said: "It's okay now, I just got the news that Tubo sent a team of envoys, and I was about to discuss this matter with General Zhao, but he came first, saving the time to send someone to invite him over, Marshal, the lower official estimated that General Zhao was afraid that he also had his own fine work to be placed on the side of the Tubo people, and he came here today, probably for this matter!" ”

Huangfu Weiming touched his long beard and said, "Let's wait for him to come and hear what he has to say!" ”

Soon, Zhao Ziliang was covered in armor, holding the hilt of the knife, and strode into the lobby with his combat boots, stopping in the middle to salute Huangfu Weiming: "Ziliang has seen the handsome, and he took the liberty to visit, please forgive the handsome!" ”

Huangfu Weiming waved his hand and smiled: "It's okay, it's okay, General Zhao, please take a seat!" ”

Someone automatically gave up a seat for Zhao Ziliang, Zhao Ziliang was not polite, sat down with a golden knife, and soon a maid brought wine and meat, Zhao Ziliang drove two or three hundred miles and was really hungry and thirsty, regardless of the image.

Huangfu Weiming saw Zhao Ziliang gobbling up like this, he couldn't help but laugh a little, coughed twice and asked, "The general doesn't know what's going on here?" ”

Zhao Ziliang put down the leg of mutton, wiped his mouth, and said: "Dashuai, Tubo sent a team of envoys over, and it has now passed through Mantou City, originally the two countries are now in the period of war, and there will be a reason to prohibit them from entering the country, but how can my Datang be regarded as a big country in the world, and it is the suzerain of dozens of small countries around it, so it should show due bearing, so it did not prevent them from entering the country, but sent a personal guard Hu from the team to meet and escort them. ”

Huangfu Weiming nodded noncommittally and motioned for Zhao Ziliang to continue.

Zhao Ziliang said again: "The marshal is wise, he should understand what the purpose of the Tubo people sending a delegation to Chang'an is, and they must want to negotiate peace with our dynasty, and then they want to take this opportunity to recuperate and recover, and after a few years, more than ten years, they will raise troops to attack our dynasty, and our dynasty can only be beaten passively, don't you feel aggrieved?" Our generals take the court's money and are loyal to the country, and the horse leather shroud and the battlefield are naturally uncomplaining and regretless, but they can't die worthless, right? Now the situation is in my favor, it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, if we can capture the three strategic points of Bayankala Pass in the east, Kunlun Pass in the west, and Tanggula Pass in the south, and hold the passage for Tubo to attack our Datang from the north, Tubo will not be able to pose a threat to our Datang for at least 20 years, so that the mission of our generation of soldiers can be regarded as completed! ”

Huangfu Weiming listened to Zhao Ziliang's words, and suddenly yearned, and his expression was a little trance-like, but the judge Zhang Boji sitting next to him asked: "General Zhao, our army has the ability to break the Tubo and capture part of the land occupied by the Tubo army, but the deeper our army goes into the hinterland of Tubo, the weaker and weaker the combat power will be, I am afraid that our army will be defeated by the Tubo people before you say that the three strategic places you are talking about!" Moreover, if the envoy sent by the Tibetans this time really wants peace talks, and the imperial court agrees to peace talks, we must fight a quick battle, but if this war really starts, it will not be able to be resolved quickly at all! ”

At this time, Huangfu Weiming came back to his senses, and he said to Zhao Ziliang: "Don't hide it from General Zhao, Ben Shuai has indeed gotten the news, and they are still here just now discussing how to deal with this matter!" I was about to send someone to invite you to come and discuss the matter. In case the emperor and the ministers of the court were fooled by the Tibetan mission and agreed to the peace talks, the good situation would be lost, and they were indeed unwilling, so they could only grab time with the Tibetan mission for the sake of today, and lay down more Tubo cities before the Tibetan mission persuaded the emperor and the ministers of the court, and it was best to go down to the three strategic places you mentioned. However, just now Mr. Zhang also said an objective fact, the deeper our army goes into the hinterland of Tibet, the more the combat effectiveness declines sharply, we don't know where it can hit, maybe it will have to withdraw and retreat halfway through the battle, so it can only be fought anywhere, in case the imperial court really talks with Tubo, we can only stop, what does General Zhao think? ”

Zhao Ziliang thought for a while, nodded and said: "The last general is no problem here, the last general has a light cavalry of 3,000 people under him After more than years of training, he can now come and go freely in the hinterland of Tubo without worrying about the decline in combat power, the last general wants to use the handsome side as the main force to attract the troops of Tubo in the original Tuyuhun hometown, and the last general will lead these 3,000 light cavalry to attack for a long distance and take the Kunlun Pass, Tanggula Pass and Bayan Kala Pass, which are three strategic locations, but the last general still needs to report this matter to Wang Dashuai and obtain Wang Dashuai's support!" ”

Huangfu Weiming smiled: "Of course, this is how it should be. Then let's discuss the details of the cooperation operation now? ”

"Good!" Zhao Ziliang agreed, and immediately held a detailed consultation with Huangfu Weiming and his generals on the matter of jointly attacking Tibet again.

The result of the consultation was to take the Longyou Army on the side of Huangfu Weiming as the main frontal force, and make every effort to attack the military strength of Tubo in the hometown of Tuyuhun in the former east, and now that Dafeichuan has fallen into the hands of the Tang Army, the Tang Army has an advance base, the purpose of this is to attack the city and occupy more land and cities on the one hand, and on the other hand, to attract the attention of Tubo, and attract the troops of Tubo in the northeast to the front of the Longyou Army, so as to provide conditions for Zhao Ziliang's Fu Qi army to carry out a long-distance attack.

After Zhao Ziliang rushed back to Fu Qi City, he immediately sent someone to send a letter to Wang Qi who was far away in Liangzhou, which explained the matter in detail.

On March 12, Huangfu Weiming took Dafeichuan as the advance base, and led a total of 45,000 people from the Lintao Army, Heyuan Army, Jishi and other armies to attack the Tubo garrison in the hometown of Tuyuhun in the original east, these forces were already 60% of the strength of the Longyou Army, on the other hand, more than 10,000 people of the Dadou Army and the Fu Qi Army led by Zhao Ziliang also cooperated with the Longyou Army to start attacking the first line of Mantoucheng along the Tangbo Ancient Road to the south.

The Tibetan side was like facing a great enemy, and the Tibetan army deployed north of the Animaqing Mountain and the Bayankala Mountains continued to move northward, hoping to block the first wave of attacks by the Tang army, and even the Tibetan garrison south of the Kunlun Mountains in the west had to move eastward to cooperate with friendly forces.

At the same time, Zhao Ziliang had secretly arrived at Bailan, the royal city of Xituguhun, and joined Ma Lan here, and the two led 3,000 light horsemen, a total of 6,000 war horses. Two horses per person move quickly south.

On March 14, Zhao Ziliang and Ma Lu led their troops to march west along the northern foot of Burhan Buda Mountain through the Qaidam River, and on the night of March 14, the army stopped to rest, and the officers and men of the Tang Army who marched for two days and nights could not stay up, and rested under a mountain after Zhao Ziliang's order.

Zhao Ziliang exhaled two long white breaths evenly in his nostrils, swept away the snow thick above it with his hand by a rock, and grabbed a handful of snow with his hand and put it in his mouth with a hard steamed bun while chewing and swallowing, including him, all the soldiers of the Tang Army are this kind of food, and they can't bring kettles and wine jugs on this snowy plateau, because the temperature of dozens of degrees below zero will make any wine freeze into ice cubes, and when rationing food to the soldiers, there is no ration of water bags and wine at all, And on this snowy plateau, drinking alcohol is very bad for overcoming altitude sickness.

was chewing hard steamed buns, Ma Lan walked over with a pale face and stepped on the thick white snow and reported weakly: "General, more than 100 people have experienced symptoms of dizziness and nausea, which are basically the same as the symptoms of altitude sickness that the general said. ”

Zhao Ziliang saw that Ma Luan's face was not good, and knew that he was only afraid that he would also have altitude sickness, and said: "The altitude of our training site was only 9,900 feet before, and now the altitude is more than 1,200 feet, it is normal for soldiers to have these situations, don't worry, you go and gather these people together first, and go over after eating!" ”

"No!"

After Zhao Ziliang finished eating, he took out a brocade box from the wrench space, turned around and walked towards the soldiers who had altitude sickness.

Seeing Zhao Ziliang coming over, more than 100 soldiers and generals with altitude sickness stood up weakly, still greeted Zhao Ziliang, and shouted: "General! ”

Zhao Ziliang pressed his hand: "Sit down, sit down, you should rest more now, pay attention to your breathing mode, relax, inhale slowly, and exhale slowly!" ”

After speaking, he opened the brocade box and said: "This pill is a medicine for altitude sickness, eat one pill per person, and then eat something after eating, Brehan, you send them down, in addition, we will rest here for one night tonight, let the man cook some hot soup, and give the soldiers hot steamed buns before eating!" ”

"No!" Brehan agreed, took the brocade box, and handed out pills to everyone.

In his previous life, Zhao Ziliang served on the western plateau, and also had altitude sickness, and after a period of contact with the locals, he got a prescription for treating altitude sickness, so he remembered this prescription, and before this departure, he asked people to buy some medicinal materials, mainly using ginseng, codonopsis, rhodiola rosea, plantain and other medicinal materials as raw materials to configure this pill that can treat altitude sickness, and he had tried it before coming, and the effect was very good.

After the man made a fire to cook and cook the soup, the soldiers were all around the fire while roasting the fire, while eating roasted steamed buns and drinking hot soup, Zhao Ziliang also walked to the fire and took out some steamed buns and skewered them with wooden sticks and roasted them on the fire, and put a bowl of boiling broth in an iron pot on the fire, which was too comfortable to drink.

Ma Luan, who had taken medicine, had obviously improved, he walked over and sat down beside Zhao Ziliang and said, "General, our marching speed is too slow, it has been two days, and we have only come to less than two hundred miles, and the terrain here is rugged, are we going the wrong way?" ”

Zhao Ziliang took out a map drawn out by detail, took out a compass and studied it for a while, and said: "The direction is right, this is the road, the mountain we are on now is called Detu Mountain, this is here, go two hundred miles further, the terrain will be flatter, then we will speed up!" (To be continued.) )