Zhao Ziliang didn't care much about Said's escape, even if this person escaped with dozens of personal guards, he still had to go through the vast desert to the southwest to return to the Great Food Country, all the way was under the jurisdiction of the Mengchi Protectorate, and the oasis in the desert was inhabited by many tribes of Western Turkic descent, and it is unknown whether Said and his personal soldiers can pass through the territory of these people and return to the Great Food Country alive. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

On August 30, Zhao Ziliang's Tang army of 7,000 and the Western Regions of more than 20,000 troops faced the northbound Great Food Army of more than 10,000 people, and the two sides lined up to face each other 20 miles north of Baishui City.

In the past two days, each side sent small units to carry out a tentative offensive to understand the general combat characteristics of the two sides and the combat methods of their commanders.

Late at night on the first day of September, Zhao Ziliang had not rested, and was fighting against the big cannibals tomorrow, Wang Can came in to report: "General, the spies came to report that the camp of the big cannibals was full of people and the neighing of war horses, and it was suspected that there were signs of withdrawal, and the spies wanted to get close to investigate, but they were blocked by the spies of the big food army, and they couldn't figure out the specific situation!" ”

"Did you hear shouts of killing?"

"I didn't hear that!"

Zhao Ziliang touched the stubble on his chin and asked, "Didn't Daoud learn about Said's defeat and escape or the news of the Khorasan rebellion, and he was anxious to think about withdrawing his troops?" ”

Wang Can thought for a while, nodded and said: "I don't rule out this possibility, if he had known that Said had been defeated and fled or that there was a rebellion in Khorasan Province, he would have withdrawn his troops long ago, and he didn't have to wait until now, he should have just learned the news, after all, the road is far away, and the news transmission is inconvenient!" General, now that the big cannibals want to withdraw their troops, will our army take the opportunity to follow and kill? ”

Zhao Ziliang thought for a moment and shook his head: "No, after these few days of tentative attacks, I found that Daoud is cautious in nature, if he learns the news of Said's defeat or the news of the domestic rebellion, even if he wants to withdraw his army, he will definitely have a back hand, and will not give us the opportunity to hunt him down and his army, it is now late at night, and there is an accident in his camp, either he is in the old suspicious formation, so as to attract us to pursue him, and he has actually laid a trap waiting for us to take the bait, or there is an accident within them, But this is very unlikely, they rule the country as a sect, and the same should be true in the army, and people with different doctrinal ideas must not remain in the same army! ”

Wang Can listened to Zhao Ziliang's speculation, and didn't understand what kind of medicine was sold in this big cannibal gourd, so he asked, "General, what should we do now?" ”

Zhao Ziliang got up and looked at the map, pondered for a long time, and shouted outside the tent: "Come on, go and invite the king of Shunyi to come over!" ”

"No!"

The king of Shiguo, Mo Heji Tutun, was soon introduced into the big tent by Hu Cong, and Zhao Ziliang smiled and said: "King Shunyi, I really don't want to invite you over so late, but the stakes are very high, so please forgive me!" ”

Mo Hezhu Tutun shook his head and said: "The difference between what the general said, now the general is doing me a big favor, the general has something, even if it is too late, I have to come over, I don't know what the general commands?" ”

Zhao Ziliang asked, "King Shunyi, I wonder if there is a shortcut or a small road from here to Tuozhi City?" ”

Tuozhi City is the capital of Shiguo, this time the big cannibals marched eastward, not only forced the countries of Zhaowu Jiu surnamed land to surrender, Shiguo also quickly couldn't resist, after being beaten by the big cannibals to Tuozhi City, they could only retreat to the second largest town in the northeast, Tuozhi City was occupied by the big cannibals, and it also became an important transit point for the big cannibals to attack Baishui City and Henglus City in the north.

Mo Heji Tutun walked to the map and stretched out his finger to draw a straight line and said: "The road from this Baishui City Road to Tuozhi City is a section of the Northern Silk Road, there is only one such one, but if you want to detour the road, it is not impossible, from here you can reach Tuozhi City without turning the direction in a straight line to the south, the distance is still much shorter, but the road is not very easy to walk, the marching speed is not fast, there are many horse bandits and robbers hidden between the sand dunes and weathered grottoes along the way, so the caravan generally takes the big road, not this shortcut!" ”

Zhao Ziliang asked, "Who are the horse bandits and robbers hiding between these sand dunes and grottoes?" Are they all from Shiguo? ”

Mo Heji Tutun shook his head and said: "Not all, those horse bandits and robbers have everything, including people from my Shiguo, Han people, and other people from the land of Zhaowu Jiu, and there are also big cannibals and people from the West, some of them were caravans before they became horse bandits and robbers, and they couldn't go back after the caravan had an accident, so they could only do the work of horse bandits and robbers here, so a caravan occupied a mountain and became a group of horse bandits!" ”

Zhao Ziliang shook his head and smiled bitterly: "It seems that you guys are messy enough here!" ”

Mo Heji Tutun was quite embarrassed when he heard Zhao Ziliang's words, after all, he was the king of Shiguo, and there were so many horse bandits hidden in the domestic territory, and these horse bandits were still often looting on the Silk Road, but his face as a king was not bright.

Zhao Ziliang thought for a while and said to Mo Heji Tutun: "I want to send a light cavalry to take this path straight into Tuozhi City, capturing Tuozhi City is equivalent to cutting off the retreat of this big food army, but there are an unknown number of horse bandits blocking the way, and if the horse bandits learn the news that we sent troops to take the trail south, it is possible that the big cannibals will know, if the big cannibals learn the news, the plan to attack Tuozhi City will fail, I don't know if the King of Shunyi has a way to persuade the horse bandits entrenched in this area, let them not only keep the secret for us, And open the road for our army to pass? ”

Mo Heji Tutun was stunned and said in surprise: "The general is going to cooperate with the horse bandits and robbers?" Isn't this tantamount to seeking the skin of a tiger? ”

Zhao Ziliang shook his head and said, "Who is the tiger?" Now that our army is in full swing, their horse bandits are only numerous, but after all, they are scattered sand, they are just a rabble, and they only want to keep secrets and prevent leakage of news, if they can promise them huge benefits, they probably won't refuse, right? ”

Mo Heji Tutun was confused by Zhao Ziliang's words, and asked: "Please also ask the general, what can be done to make those horse bandits not leak the news and let us pass smoothly?" ”

Zhao Ziliang said: "There is only one way, that is, let them accompany them, and attack Tuozhi City together with the troops and horses we sent, but there is no huge benefit, they will definitely not do it, so we must be willing to give up some capital, now Tuozhi City must be hoarded by the big cannibals A large amount of grain and grass, after all, this is their nearest supply point, if we promise that as long as we break through the Tuozhi City, all the grain, grass and materials in the city of the big cannibals will be handed over to those horse bandits, presumably they should not refuse, right?" ”

Mo Heji Tutun was dumbfounded, and stammered: "General, this ?????? Isn't that good? ”

Zhao Ziliang smiled and asked: "Is King Shunyi reluctant to give up those things?" You must know that now that Takuzu City has been occupied by the Great Cannibals, if we don't defeat them, how can we retake Takuzu City and other towns occupied by the Great Cannibals? As the saying goes, if you can't bear the child, you can't trap the wolf, King Shunyi, do you think about it? ”

Grain and grass materials are trivial matters, but cooperating with horse bandits and robbers makes Mo Heji Tutun feel disgraced and lose face, but he also knows that this is not the time to talk about face, so he can only grit his teeth and cooperate with the horse bandits and robbers to beat the big cannibals away, as for those horse bandits, he will find a way to deal with them in the future, so he gritted his teeth and agreed: "Okay, since the general has decided, then this time Xiao Wang will personally negotiate with those horse bandits and robbers, I don't know who the general is going to send to lead the troops together, and how many soldiers and horses to send?" ”

Zhao Ziliang said: "Wei Meng has already fought with the big cannibal a few times, he is familiar with the situation of the big cannibal, this general wants him to lead three thousand troops to accompany you to the surprise attack on Tuozhi City, what do you think?" ”

Mo Heji Tutun agreed: "Okay, General Wei Meng is brave and strategic, and he must be competent!" Xiao Wang will do his best to assist him in taking Tuozhi City! ”

"That's fine, you go back to the camp first to prepare, General Ben will go and call Wei Meng, and you will lead the troops to set off in an hour!"

"Understood!"

At about two o'clock in the morning of the second day of the ninth lunar month, Wei Meng and Mo Heji Tutun took 3,000 Tang troops and 1,000 stone troops to abandon the main road and went directly south through the hills and grottoes to march rapidly in the direction of Tuozhi City overnight.

Although Moheji Tutun was the king of Shiguo, he was not familiar with this path that no one had ever walked before, but that did not mean that no one among his men was unfamiliar with this path, and they quickly disappeared into the endless hills and grottoes.

Daoud was very confident in the trap he laid, but he didn't expect that Zhao Ziliang didn't plan to lead his troops to step on the trap he set at all, and still confronted him on the spot, which made Daoud very puzzled, did Zhao Ziliang see his trap?

In fact, his subordinates intercepted a few fish that escaped from the city of Hengrus, and he learned the news that Saeed abandoned the city and fled into the desert after suffering heavy losses, and then he got the news that Abu ****** was leading many people to rebel in the Khorasan region, and now all parts of Khorasan are in chaos, and his army has lost its support, once Khorasan is occupied by the rebels, his army will become a rootless ping, there is no place to stay, and the Sogdians and Tocharians will definitely rebel.

In order to be able to retreat smoothly, he decided to lay a trap to lure the Tang army to attack, so as to kill and injure the main force of the Tang army in large numbers, so that it could not be able to catch up, so that he could quickly and smoothly retreat back to China with the army.

But it backfired, Zhao Ziliang, the chief general of the Tang army, ignored the trap he laid at all, and still just kept sending scouts to infiltrate and investigate, and at the same time the army was watching from the sidelines, which made him unable to lead the army to retreat, if he retreated at this time, Zhao Ziliang would definitely lead the army to chase and kill, and the army under his command would inevitably suffer heavy losses at that time.

Fortunately, Daoud ordered to block the news of Said's defeat and domestic rebellion, otherwise his subordinates would have become a mess before the Tang army came. (To be continued.) )