In Huangzhou, Xihe Road, a Western Xia army of 20,000 people was stealthily marching through the Great Douba Valley and killing Huangzhou in the southeast.

The local war between Song and Xia has lasted for several months, starting from the Battle of Tokyo, in order to stop the king of Qin, the emperor of Jin, Wan Yan Sheng, the son of Jin, personally wrote to Li Qianshun, the king of Western Xia, asking him to send troops to Shaanxi Road and Hexi region.

Li Qianshun was hindered by the Xiajin agreement, so he ordered 100,000 Western Xia soldiers to attack Shaanxi Road and Xihe Road in two ways.

Because the Shaanxi Road has been transferred to the capital as the prime minister, the current Xihe Road commander is the capital Liu Guangshi, although his father Liu Yanqing got on a thief ship in the south of the Yangtze River, and finally unfortunately died, but the court did not deal with him, but also because the border war was too tight.

The strategy of the Western Xia army is also obvious, the virtual attack on Shaanxi Road, the actual attack on Xihe Road, the Western Xia Army only put 20,000 troops on Shaanxi Road, stop fighting, and constantly contain the Song army, but in Xihe Road put 80,000 heavy soldiers, by the Jin King Richard, to attack Xihe Road, Richard Brother also made a military order, within three months to capture Xihe Road.

In the past two months, the Western Xia army has fought fiercely in Lanzhou and Huizhou three times, the two sides have won and lost each other, and the main reason is that the Song army on Xihe Road is insufficient, only more than 40,000 people, and 80,000 Xixia army is very difficult to contend with, not only the Xihe Road is insufficient, the strength of Qinfeng Road and Shaanxi Road is also very short, Qinfeng Road is only 10,000 troops, and the Shaanxi Road is only 25,000 troops, and the three armies add up to a total of 80,000 people.

It's not that the Western Army has no soldiers, the key is that Li Yanqing has taken away 70,000 Jingzhao troops, not to mention the 30,000 troops directly under Li Yanqing, Han Shizhong's 20,000 troops have beaten the remaining 10,000 remnants of the army has been incorporated into Wang Yuan's upper fourth army and become the main force of Gongwei Lin'an Mansion.

In addition, there were 20,000 troops led by Cao Xing, who were guarding the front line of Tongguan, and the Jin soldiers who defended Hedong Road took advantage of the weakness to attack Guanzhong, and all the armies were involved, and they could not support the Song army on Xihe Road for a while.

Liu Guangshi's 40,000 troops have been deployed in Lanzhou and Huizhou, which is the main battlefield of the Western Xia army's southern offensive, and the Song army has gone all out, but in this way, the weakness of the Song army's insufficient strength is undoubtedly revealed, Xining Prefecture and Huangzhou are seriously lacking in troops, and the Song army stationed in Huangzhou has only more than 2,000 people, which is stationed at the southern exit of the Dadou Tu Valley.

The weakness of the Song army's lack of strength had been seen through by Richard Brother, and he ordered Li Chaoying, the king of Gyeongju, to lead 50,000 troops to feint to attack Lanzhou, and he himself personally led 20,000 troops to attack the rear of the Song army by taking advantage of the Dadou Bagu.

Da Dou Tu Gu is actually a river valley, tens of millions of years of dark river scouring, gradually will Qilian Mountain out of a gap, when the river disappears, the river valley becomes a canyon, up to more than 200 miles, from the north foot of Qilian Mountain Zhangye extends to Huangzhou, across Qilian Mountain, the mountain road in the canyon is dangerous, it is difficult to walk, the widest place reaches more than ten miles, the narrowest place is less than one mile, there are often fierce beasts to set off.

Due to the difficult and dangerous road, even the merchants are not very willing to take this road, so that the big bucket valley is very cold and desolate, Richard brother walked in front with a gloomy face, he was not very reluctant to attack Xihe Road this time, Richard Brother hopes to attack Shaanxi Road, if you can occupy Jingzhao Mansion, the country of Western Xia will be further stronger, but unfortunately Shaanxi Road and Qinfeng Road are the dishes of the Jin soldiers, and they are not allowed to get involved, and the Western Xia army can only attack the meat skin of Xihe Road, which is fat.

After two days of marching, the 20,000 Western Xia troops arrived at the south exit of the canyon, ten miles from the mouth of the valley, the army stopped advancing, and by this time night had fallen, and Richard waited patiently for news from the spies.

Just when it was completely dark, the spies finally returned, bringing information about the Song army.

"The Song army was not encamped, they were all stationed in the castle."

Richard also knew that there was a military castle near Taniguchi, called Babelfort, but he only heard of its name and did not know the details of the castle.

"How many Song soldiers have been detected?"

"Back to the prince, I don't know the specific number, but I observe that the castle is not big, and it can accommodate up to three thousand people!"

Brother Richard perked up, and hurriedly said: "Let's talk about the castle specifically!" ”

The spy thought for a while: "The castle is relatively rough, it is obviously built with nearby stones, about two zhang high, less than three miles in circumference, very square, two city gates, east and west, there is no moat around, but the other party's castle is built in the middle of the mountain, the terrain is relatively dangerous, easy to defend and difficult to attack." ”

In fact, whether to fight this castle or not is the same for the Western Xia army, they don't carry much logistical baggage, and they are not afraid that the other party will cut off their supply line, they can completely bypass the castle and kill directly at the back of the Song army.

However, it is not Richard's style to not fight in the city, but how to attack the city, as the first general in Western Xia, Richard has his own strategy.

Under the cover of night, 20,000 Western Xia troops slaughtered out of the valley and directly killed Huangzhou City, a hundred miles away.

Tongtian Fort only has two thousand Song troops, but more than half of the Song army on Xihe Road are Qiang people, there is no way, the military budget is insufficient, and the Qiang people can only be recruited by exempting taxes, the Qiang people are okay to fight in the mountains, they have good physical strength, and they are good at fighting, but the weakness is also obvious, that is, the degree of training is very poor, it is not that they do not train, and the training has no effect, the Qiang people are more casual, do not obey the military order, fight or not to fight has nothing to do with the military order, it is all according to their own interests.

The 2,000 Song troops in Tongtianbao were all Qiang soldiers, and the main general was called Zuo Hu, a Qiang commander, about thirty years old, a small chief of a Qiang tribe in Xining Prefecture, who had joined the Song army for five or six years, but basically never fought.

Zuo Hu was drinking with a Qiang girl in his arms in the military office, when suddenly a soldier came to report, "I found a strange army, as many as 20,000 people, rushing out of the Great Dou Ba Valley." ”

This information suddenly scared Zuo Hu out of a cold sweat, the wine immediately woke up, he pushed away the Qiang girl and stumbled towards the city, although Zuo Hu had no combat experience, but he was not a fool, he knew in his heart that the army that came out of the Great Dou Tu Valley must be the Western Xia Army.

The city was already full of defenders, gathering together and whispering, "Where is the enemy?" Zuo Hu rushed over, and the nail leaves on his body rattled.

"There it is!" Several soldiers pointed into the distance.

Zuohu went to the city a little later, and only saw the thousands of rear troops of the Western Xia army, marching rapidly southward in the moonlight.

"Send a pigeon letter to inform Lanzhou immediately!" Zuo Hu immediately issued a military order.

At this time, one of his subordinates asked in a low voice, "Do you want to send someone to the valley to have a look, maybe there will be a supply convoy of the Tanguts." ”

Zuo Hu nodded, and sent a few spies out of the city to explore the valley, the Song army's military expenses were seriously insufficient, and there was a shortage of materials in Tongtian City, whether it was the leader Zuo Hu or ordinary soldiers, they were extremely eager for the enemy's supplies.

When the day was about to dawn, Zuo Hu got the news, a logistics convoy composed of 300 carts was coming towards the valley mouth, the carts were full of mutton, sheep wine, wheat, salt and other items, all of which were the most scarce materials in Tongtian City, the soldiers heard the news, their eyes were red, the soldiers had not eaten meat for almost a month, and the army had long been disheartened, and suddenly heard that there were hundreds of carts of meat, and 2,000 soldiers were shouting around the military office.

Zuo Hu also had no choice, although Liu Guangshi strictly ordered him not to go out of the city, but he couldn't stand the army from making trouble, and if he didn't agree that the soldiers would rebel, fortunately, the other party's escort army was only 500 people, Zuo Hu had to agree, and the castle was suddenly jubilant, and the two thousand soldiers seemed to have seen the tempting scene of roasting lamb legs on a bonfire.

Towards noon, a mighty logistics convoy finally appeared, and 300 carts were discharged for nearly a mile, all of which were pulled by two donkeys, and the donkey meat alone made the defenders salivate.

Zuo Hu couldn't stop the soldiers, and he gave an order, "Open the city gate!" ”

The city gate slowly opened, two thousand soldiers had already been unable to bear it, shouted, rushed out of the city gate, and rushed towards the convoy two miles away, the Western Xia soldiers guarding the convoy saw the defenders in the city killed, they were not in a hurry, fired three gunpowder arrows into the sky, and then immediately dropped the cart and retreated.

Three gunpowder arrows burst in the air, crackling sound came out for several miles, Zuo Hu could see clearly on the head of the city, his face couldn't help twitching, and suddenly realized that something was wrong, but it was too late, the south drums were loud, the sound of horses' hooves shook on the ground, and the Western Xia cavalry who were ambushed several miles away rushed towards the city like arrows.

The two thousand soldiers who rushed out to grab the cart also found out that something was wrong, turned around and ran towards the city, but two legs could not run four legs, hundreds of Western Xia cavalry arrived at the city gate first, cutting off the retreat of two thousand soldiers, and then thousands of cavalry shouted to kill the Song army.

Two thousand Song troops saw that the situation was not good, suddenly scattered, scattered and fled, was chased by the cavalry everywhere, countless casualties, at this time Zuo Hu knew that the castle had been lost, he immediately ran down the city and turned over his horse, with more than a dozen of his men rushed out of the east city gate, ran in the direction of Lanzhou, but they only escaped a few hundred steps, the south of the road suddenly rushed out of countless crossbowmen, random arrows, Zuo Hu and more than a dozen of his subordinates all shot to kill.

The capture of Tongtian Fort by the Western Xia army was only a prelude to the opening of the offensive curtain, Li Chage led 20,000 Western Xia troops to attack Lanzhou, and at the same time, Li Chaoying, the king of Gyeongju, led an army of 60,000 to attack Lanzhou, Liu Guangshi suffered from the enemy on his back, the fortifications were completely useless, and the Song army was at an extreme disadvantage.

Liu Guangshi led 40,000 Song troops and 80,000 Western Xia troops to fight a decisive battle on the front line of Lanhui, the Song army's strength was only half of the opponent's, and morale was low, while the Western Xia army was the most elite Iron Harrier Army and Proton Army, and the strength of the two sides was completely disproportionate.

The Song army was defeated in five battles west of Huining Pass, with losses of more than 20,000 people, Liu Guangshi was helpless, so he had to lead 15,000 remnants of the army to evacuate in the direction of Weizhou.