The news of the loss of Lingzhou and the defeat of 40,000 defenders reached Xingqing Mansion, and Li Qianshun, the son of Western Xia, fainted immediately, and everyone gave first aid to finally wake Li Qianshun up.

Shangshu Yinggui of the Ministry of War persuaded: "Your Majesty, now we still have a chance, we still have more than 100,000 troops, all of them are cavalry with strong combat effectiveness, we can still defeat the Song army, at this time we must be calm, we must cheer up, Your Majesty must not fall." ”

Jiao Yanjian also said: "Yingshangshu is right, we are far from the time when the mountains and rivers are exhausted, the defeat of the conventional army is only a part, our real strength is in the alliance of the tribes, we had 500,000 troops back then, even if there are only 100,000 now, but they are also the elite of the tribes. ”

Under the persuasion of everyone, Li Qianshun's desperate mood was finally calmed down a little, and he asked again: "Is there any news from the Jin Kingdom?" ”

Everyone shook their heads, and Li Renzong, the king of Pu, bowed down and said: "Weichen thinks that the Jin Kingdom is now in a hurry to conquer Mobei and has no time to take care of us, which is also the main reason why the Song army chose to attack Western Xia at this time. ”

"I'm afraid that Jin Guo was worried that he would help us, so he gave Song Jun an excuse to tear up the agreement, Your Majesty, we can't count on Jin Bing, we can only rely on ourselves."

Li Qianshun nodded and asked, "May I ask the ministers, who is more suitable to command the coalition forces?" ”

Everyone was silent, and then Jiao Yanjian came out and said: "Your Majesty, Weichen still recommends the King of Jin, there are many contradictions within the coalition army, such as the Tuoba Department and the Fine Seal Department have been opposed for hundreds of years, non-tough generals cannot lead them, and at present, only the authority of the King of Jin can suppress the tribal armies." ”

Li Qianshun was silent, Brother Richard had already lost two battles in a row, Xiazhou had a fiasco, Lingzhou had a fiasco, and Western Xia had lost 70,000 people, he could not tolerate Brother Richard again and again, otherwise he would not be able to explain to his courtiers.

Li Qianshun shook his head, "Although King Jin has experience, he has not been in good shape recently, so let's give the opportunity to others!" ”

Yinggui and Brother Richard have always been at odds because of the relationship between the competition for military power, and he also said: "Your Majesty is right, we won the battle of Datongfu first and then lost, and we lost the battle of Xiazhou and Lingzhou inexplicably, and Weichen also thinks that the King of Jin is not suitable for commanding major battles, I am not saying that he is inexperienced, maybe he has not been lucky in the past few years!" ”

"Then who does Fang Shangshu think is more suitable?"

Yinggui smiled slightly: "Jiao Shangshu also said just now, these hundreds of thousands of people are coalition forces, and they need a person who is recognized by all tribes, and Weichen thinks that King Wei is a good candidate." ”

Jiao Yanjian shook his head and said, "King Wei can't do it, he is not Li Yanqing's opponent!" ”

"Humph! Then King Jin is Li Yanqing's opponent? At least King Wei has never been defeated, how many times has King Jin been defeated at the hands of Li Yanqing? ”

"The defeat of the King of Jin is excusable, the first time is that he has too few troops, with 30,000 troops against 100,000 Song troops, the failure is not surprising, the second time is to defend the city, it is said that the Song army used the powerful earth-shaking thunder, in this case, no matter who it is, it is difficult to hold Lingzhou......"

"Jiao Shangshu's words are different!"

Yinggui retorted: "It has nothing to do with the earth-shaking thunder that can't hold Lingzhou, the Song soldiers don't have three heads and six arms, and they didn't use the earth-shaking thunder to kill the Western Xia soldiers, both sides are knife to knife, spear to spear, why is the final result that the Song army occupies Lingzhou, not the Western Xia army drives the Song army out of Lingzhou?" Is it because the Western Xia army is insufficient? ”

Yinggui's interrogation was very sharp, the defeat of Lingzhou was not because the earth-shaking thunder blew open the city gate, but the army of Lingzhou City was not prepared at night, and only hurriedly responded to the battle after the Song army entered the city, and was not good at night fighting, and finally suffered a comprehensive defeat, tens of thousands of troops only fled back less than 2,000 people, and Brother Richard did bear unshirkable responsibility for the loss of Lingzhou.

Yinggui finally said categorically: "King Jin Shoulingzhou is like sleepwalking, he didn't come out of the nightmare of Xiazhou's defeat at all, he gangstered Tuntun, coping with overnight mistakes, and the deployment was full of loopholes, which finally led to another fiasco in Western Xia, he should take responsibility for this, instead of handing over more than 100,000 people to him." ”

Yinggui's opposition was unanimously supported by everyone, not because he rejected Brother Richard because of one or two failures, but because he was too out of state, and hundreds of thousands of troops were handed over to him, and he would still be lost in a daze like sleepwalking, and then the Western Xia would be destroyed.

Li Qianshun finally made up his mind, since the armies of the various tribes were gathered by King Wei, then King Wei should naturally be the commander.

He also knew that King Wei was a little softer in leading troops, and he had no experience in combat, both of which were actually taboo in soldiers, but the people who could integrate hundreds of thousands of troops at present, except for Brother Richard, there was only King Wei Li Zhizong, as for making up for the lack of experience, only let some experienced generals follow him.

It was a matter of life and death in Western Xia, Li Qianshun personally sacrificed the flag for this army, and awarded the tiger talisman to the king of Wei Li Zhizong in front of hundreds of thousands of troops.

Li Zhizong then led an army of 150,000 to Jingzhou.

The distance between Lingzhou and Jingzhou is about 100 miles, and Li Yanqing did not immediately go north after capturing Lingzhou, he knew that the other party's 150,000 troops had been assembled, and he went up at this time to fight them head-on.

Although many generals led by Wang Gui believed that the Song army should take the initiative to attack and take the enemy by surprise before the 150,000 army was assembled and the unification was completed.

However, Li Yanqing believed that the Western Xia army had always been in a state of loose alliance, and this state would not change due to the passage of time, and unless the party members directly annexed other tribes, the situation of each tribe maintaining independence would not change.

Similarly, the combat effectiveness of the Western Xia army will not become weaker because it has just been assembled, and they will still attack more, which is a tactic that the Song army has experienced for a hundred years.

The Song army occupied Lingzhou, but the camp was still stationed south of Lingzhou.

On the morning of this day, Li Yanqing took a hundred soldiers to inspect the repair of Lingzhou City, the Song army destroyed the south gate of Lingzhou City, simply demolished the north city gate, and rebuilt it at the same time, there were very few people in Lingzhou City, almost all of them were captured by the Song army in the last war and went to the south, and later the party was exchanged for Song slaves by the Western Xia, and they were all arranged into Xingqing Mansion, making Lingzhou City almost a military city.

Since this big city was occupied, the Song army also had to make full use of it, and Liu Tie led 30,000 troops to be stationed in it, which could contain the party and the coalition forces to a certain extent.

Hundreds of craftsmen at the city gate were in full swing repairing the city wall, and they moved quickly, completing seventy percent of the work in just two days.

"How long will it take to repair the walls?" Li Yanqing asked a master craftsman leader.

"Lord Qiyu Sutra, I can finish it tonight, and strive to finish everything before dawn."

Li Yanqing nodded, "Thank you for your hard work!" ”

"It's our business, and we've made it a big deal."

At this time, there was a rapid sound of horses' hooves behind him, Li Yanqing turned around, but saw Wang Gui riding a horse with an excited face, Li Yanqing couldn't help laughing, he knew why Wang Gui came, but he didn't think of the answer so quickly!

Last night, the generals discussed military affairs, and when talking about combat countermeasures, everyone quarreled, and Li Yanqing gave everyone a question, how to take advantage of the opponent's weakness to break the enemy?

Looking at it like this, Wang Gui has found the answer.

After a moment, Wang Gui stepped forward with excitement on his face, saluted and said, "I have thought of the answer!" ”

"Tell me, what's the answer?"

Wang Gui looked at both sides vigilantly, as if the wall had ears, Li Yanqing was amused by him, so he slapped him on the head and said with a smile: "Who will listen to your secrets, say it quickly!" ”

Wang Gui scratched his head and smiled: "The biggest weakness of the 150,000 cavalry is the supply of military food, they can't eat dry food every day!" They will inevitably establish a huge logistics supply line, I estimate that Jingzhou will be the logistics supply center, we can stretch the battlefield a little farther away, the opportunity is left to the Lingzhou defenders, as long as Jingzhou is captured, it will cut off the enemy's logistics supply, and then it is time for us to attack fiercely. ”

Li Yanqing said with a smile: "If Jingzhou is really taken away and logistics supplies are lost, what if the 150,000 troops will return to Xingqing Mansion?" Or starve to death on the spot? ”

Wang Gui was stunned for a moment, his face gradually faded when he was excited, and he felt that the foolproof plan was actually broken by the unified sentence, which made Wang Gui really frustrated.

"Isn't the weakness of the enemy's army a problem with military rations?"

Li Yanqing said lightly: "The issue of military rations is indeed the weakness of the Western Xia army, but it is not the biggest weakness, we need to hit the key point and grasp their biggest weakness to make a fuss." ”

Seeing that Wang Gui was still at a loss, Li Yanqing smiled and said, "Let me remind you!" The greatest weakness of this Western Xia army was their composition. ”

Wang Gui pondered for a moment and said, "What does the capital mean that they are actually eight armies? ”

Li Yanqing nodded, "That's right!" ”

"But the Western Xia Army has always been like this! It hasn't changed for more than a hundred years, it's all eight armies, and the Song army hasn't found their weaknesses. ”

"That's because the Song army over the years has not penetrated into the hinterland of Western Xia like us."

Wang Gui fell into deep thought again, and Li Yanqing said, "Go back to the barracks!" The answer is that it's time to unveil it. ”